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VEDIC INDIA 




Till! CONyUKST OV l.ANKA (ISLU or CEVLON) 



liY THE HINDUS:— I.'INAL BATIXli BETWEEN RAMA WITH HIS ALLIES THE APES. AND RAVANA, THE DEMON-KING OF LANKA, WITH HIS ARMY OF 
IlLACK RAKSHASAS (fIENDS). — FROM THE RAMAYANA. 



THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 



VEDIC INDIA 



AS EMBODIED PRINCIPALLY IN THE RIG-VEDA 



BY 

zenaTde a. ragozin 

MEMBEK OF THE " ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND 

Ireland"; of the " American oriental society"; of the "socifiTf 

ETHNOLOGIQUE " OF PARIS, ETC. 

AUTHOR OF "the STORY OF CHALDEA," " THE STORY OF ASSYRIA" 

" THE STORY OF MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA," ETC. 



" He [Carlyle] says it is part of his creed that history is poetry, could we tell it 
right."— Emerson. 

"Da mihi, Domine, scire quod sciendum est." — " Imitation of Christ." 
C Grant that the knowledge I get jnay be the knowledge -worth having.'" — 

Matthew Arnold'' s version ) 

DECEIVED 




NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN 
1899 



^^\ 






Copyright, 1895 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 

By T. FISHER UNWIN 



By imnaSex 

JUL dO 1915 



Ubc Iknicficvbocftcr press, IRew l^orft 



PREFACE. 



The present volume, as originally planned, was to 
have included the post-vedic or Brahmanic period, 
and to have borne the title of Story of Vedic and 
Brahmanic India. The overwhelming mass of 
material, however, made it impossible to keep to the 
original plan, except at the cost of lucidity, com- 
pleteness, interesting detail, and all the qualities that 
go to make a book with any claim to popularity. 
Nothing remained but to ".divide the subject-matter 
into the two halves into which it naturally separates, 
and leave the Story of BrahiHanic India to the im- 
mediately following volume, which will embrace the 
results attained by the study of the Atharva-Veda, 
the Brahmanas, the Upanishads, the Laws, and a 
synopsis at least of the great epics. 

Z. A. R. 




CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. 



I. 



PAGE 

1-47 



The Wonderland of the East . 

§§ i-2. General description of India. — §§ 3-4. The Hima- 
laya. — § 5. Monsoons and rainfall. — §§ 6-7. Famines. — 
§8. The Vindhya.— § 9. The Ghats.— §§ lo-ii. Forests 
and their destruction. — § 12. The Deodar — § 13. The Ficus 
Indica, or Banyan. — § 14. The Ficiis Religiosa, or Pippala. 
— §15. Other vegetable products. — § 16. Exuberant vege- 
tation and its causes. — § 17. Some domestic animals. — § 18. 
Tigers and snakes. — § 19. Insect world. — § 20. Mineral 
wealth. — §21. Isle of Ceylon, 

II. 

The Aryas 48-76 

§§ j-2. Parallelism between the Aryas of India and Eran. — 
§ 3. Method of work. — §§ 4-7. The Aryas before the sepa- 
ration. — §§8-li. Words the only monuments. Beginnings 
of Sanskrit scholarship. — § 12. The Root in philology. — 
§ 13. Words as factors in prehistoric reconstruction. — §§ 14- 
15. The Cow. — § 16. Mistaken notions concerning remote 
antiquity. — §§ 17-23. Sanskrit word-studies. — § 24. Uncer- 
tainty as to the Aryas' primeval home. 

III. 

The Sources of our Knowledge . . . 77-102 

§1. The English East India Company. — 15 2. The Portu- 
guese East India Company. — § 3. The French East India 



vi CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. 



Company. — § 4. Warren Hastings's humane views. — § 5. 
Hampered by ignorance of the people and country. — § 6. 
Sir William Jones. — § 7. His accidental discovery of the 
Hindu Drama. — §8. Its character. — §9. Its golden age. 
Kalidasa. — §10. "The Ring of Shakuntala." — § H- 
" Vikrama and Urvasi." — §12. First results of Sanskrit 
scholarship. — § 13. Character of Hindu Poetry. — §§ 14-15. 
Brief survey of Sanskrit Literature. — §§ 16-17. Difhculties 
encountered by the first Sanskrit scholars. — §§ 18-19. II. T. 
Colebrooke and Ch. Wilkins. — § 20. Great development of 
Sanskrit scholarship. 

IV. 

The Vedas 103-130 

§ I. India specially identified with the history of Aryan 
thought and speech. — §2. Indo-Eranian period. — § 3. The 
separation. — §§4-5. The Penjab, or &//(2/;-6'm<^//wz'«/z, and 
its rivers. — § 6. Early Aryan life in the Penjab. — § 7. Race 
conflict between Aryas and natives. — §8. The Rig-Veda- 
Samhita. — §9. Earliest religious life of the Aryas in India. 
The Rishis. — § 10. The Yajur-Veda and the Sama-Veda. — • 
§ II. The Atharva-Veda. — § 12. The text of the Rig- Veda. 
Memorizing. — § 13. Necessity of commentaries. — §§ 14-15. 
The Brahmanas. — § 16. Shruti, " Revelation." — § 17. 
Smriti, "Tradition," " The Vedangas. — §18. The Sutras. 
— § 19. Shrania-Stitras and .S/war/a-Sutras. Great im- 
portance attached to the study of language and metre. — 
§ 20. The periods of Vedic Literature. 

V. 
The Rig-Veda : the Older Gods . . . 131-187 

§§ 1-2. General character of the Rig- Veda. — §§ 3-4. Chiefly 
Naturalism. The birth of Myths. — § 5. Dyaus and Prithivi, 
" Heaven and Earth." — § 6. The root Div ; Dyaus ; Deva ; 
Asura. — § 7. How names become gods. — § 8. Varuna, the 
Sky. — § g. Varuna, the King. — § 10. Varuna, the ruler of 
the Atmosphere (aniariksha). — § 11. Hymns to Varuna. — 



CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. vu 

PAGE 

§ 12. Varuna, the keeper of Rita (the Cosmic Order and the 
Moral Law. — § 13. Varuna, the punisher and forgiver of sins. 
— § 14. Mitra and Varuna. Later aspects of Varuna. — 
§§15-17. Aditi and the Adityas. — §18. Agni Fire. — §19. 
Agni, the friend of men, the messenger, the hotar (priest). 
§ 20. The Birth of Agni. — § 21. The three abodes of Agni ; 
Apam-Napat, (the Son of the Waters). — § 22. Agni's 
descent with the rain. — § 23. The finding and bringing of 
Agni. — § 24. Agni's kinship with the race of men. — § 25. 
The funereal Agni. — § 26. Soma, the Eranian Haoma. — 
§ 27. Soma the plant. — § 28. The pressing of the Soma 
plant and preparation of the sacrificial Soma-drink. — § 29. 
The celestial Soma — the Amrita (drink of immortality). — 
§§ 30-32. Soma the Moon. Mysticism of the Soma-worship. 
■ — § 33- Vivasvat and his son Yama. — § 34. Yama, King of 
the Dead. The Sarameya Dogs. — § 35. Later aspect of 
Yama. — § 36. Yama originally the Moon. His brother 
Manu, the progenitor of the human race. — § 37. Vayu or 
Vata, the Wind. — §38. Closing remarks. 

Appendix to Chapter V. . . . . 187-190 

The Churning of the Amrita. 

VI. 

The Rig-Veda : the Storm-Myth. — The Sun- 

and-Dawn Myth 191-236 

§1. The Atmospheric Drama. — §2, The sacredness of the 
Cow. — § 3. The Cloud-Kine. The Drought-Fiends. — 
§4. Atmospheric battles. — §5. Anthropomorphism. — §6, 
Indra, the champion fighter and Soma-drinker. — § 7. The 
leader and war-god of the Aryas. — §§ 8-10. The dispenser 
of wealth. — §§ 11-12. Rivalry between Indra and Varuna. 
— § 13. Indra's stormy infancy. — § 14. Harmony restored. 
— ^^§§15-19. Parjanya, the Storm-god. — §20. Rudra. — §21. 
The Maruts. — § 22. Indra and the Maruts quarrel. — §§ 
23-25. The Sun-and-Dawn Drama. — §§ 26-27. Surya, the 



viii CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. 



Sun. — § 28. Indra and Surya. — § 29. Indra and Ushas. — § 
30. Ushas, the Dawn. — § 31. The Two Sisters. — § 32. 
Ushas and Surya. — §33. Ushas, "the Mother of Cows." 
— § 34. Ushas, the dispenser of wealth. — §§ 35-38. The 
Ashvins, the Twilight Twins. — § 39. Pushan. 



VII. 

The Rig-Veda : Later and Lesser Gods. — 

Story-Myths 237-273 

§ I. Drawbacks and advantages of Classification. — § 2. 
"Later" gods — how to qualify the expression. — §3. Vague- 
ness about the rank of gods. — §4. Vishnu.— §§ 5-7. Savitar. 
— §§ 8-10. Tvashtar and the Ribhus. — § 11. Probable 
original identity of Tvashtar and Savitar. Myth of the 
Ribhus explained. — § 12. Tvashtar, Indra's father, — §§ 13- 
14. Myth of the Birth of the Ashvins. — §§ 15-16. Myth of 
Sarama and the Panis. — § 17. Transformation of nature- 
myths into spiritual and sacrificial ones. — § 18. Brihaspati 
or Brahmanaspati, "the Lord of Prayer," — §§19-20. Dei- 
fied mythical abstractions : Prajapati ; Vishvakarman ; 
Hiranyagarbha, and others — § 21. Scarcity and insignifi- 
cance of feminine deities. — § 22. The Waters and Rivers. — 
§ 23. The divine Sarasvati ; probably at one time the Indus, 
and still earlier the Eranian Haraqaiti. — § 24. Sarasvati, 
the goddess of eloquence and sacred poetry. — § 25. Vach, 
deified Speech. — § 26. Aranyani, the Forest. 

VIII. 

The Rig-Veda : Early History . . . 274-334 

§§ 1—3. The Four Castes. — § 4. Caste not mentioned in 
the Rig- Veda, except in the Purusha-Sukta. — §§ 5-6. Aryas 
and Dasyus. — § 7. Dasyus, several native tribes and races. 
— § 8. Kolarians and Dravidians. — § 9. Manners and re- 
ligion of the Kolarians. — § 10. Dravidian Serpent-worship. 
— §11. Snake-festival. — §12. Dravidians in Aryan epic 



CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. IX 



tradition.— § 13. Modern savage tribes. — §14. The Rig- 
Veda not all myth. — §§ 15-16, Historical material in the 
Rig- Veda. — § 17. Connection between Dravidian India and 
Chaldea. — § 18. Dravidian export trade. — § 19. Dravidians 
a Turanian race. — § 20. Language not a sure indication of 
race. — § 21. Non-Aryan races and language the majority in 
India, — § 22. Aryan conquest not all effected by force, — 
§ 23. Aryan propaganda carried on by the priests, — § 24. 
The Gayatri. — § 25. Vasishtha and Vishvamitra : narrow 
Orthodoxy against broad Liberalism — §26. The "Five 
Races," or " Five Tribes." — § 27. The Tritsu and the 
Puru. — § 28, Indra invoked by both Aryas and Dasyus. — 
§ 29. The Confederacy against the Tritsu. — § 30. Vishva- 
mitra's hymn to the Rivers. — § 31. Battle of the Ten Kings, 
— § 32, Aryan supremacy established. 



Appendix to Chapter VIII 335-348 

The Story of the Flood in India (the Matsya Avatar). 

§ I, Various versions of the Flood Story in Indian Litera- 
ture. — §2. Version in the Shatapatha-Brahmana. — §3, In 
the Mahabharata, — § 4, In the Matsya Purana. — § 5. In the 
Bhagavat? Purana. — § 6, Points of similarity with the 
Chaldean story. — § 7. Traces of the Flood Story in Folk- 
lore. 



IX. 



The Rig-Veda : Early Culture , . . 349-381 

§ I. General picture. — § 2. Aryan funeral rite in the Rig- 
Veda. — §§ 3-5. In the Grihya-Sutras. — §§ 6-8. Belief in a 
Future Life,— § 9. The Pitris— Fathers.— §§ 10-13. The 
Aryan Marriage-rite. Exalted position of the wife in the 
Rig- Veda. — § 15. Gambling, — §§ 16-17. Vasishtha's 
"Cursing Hymn." — §18. The Healer's Song. — §19. 
Various pursuits of men, — § 20. Closing remarks. 



X CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. 

X. 

PAGE 

The Rig-Veda : Sacrifice .... 382-413 

§ I, Importance of Sacrifice. — §§ 2-3. Dakshind — " Lar- 
gess " to the priests. — § 4. Excessive claims of the priests. — 
§§ 5-6, Sacrifice a spell. — §§ 7-8. Sacrifice an imitation of 
the heavenly phenomena of Light and Rain. — § g. Its com- 
pelling power over these phenomena. — §§ lo-ii. The 
heavenly phenomena a celestial sacrifice, the exact counter- 
part of the earthly sacrifice. — §§ 12—13. Who are the celes- 
tial sacrificers ? — §§ 14-15. To vs^hom is the celestial sacrifice 
offered? — § 16. The Ashvaviedha — Horse sacrifice. — § 17. 
The PtirtishamedJia — Human sacrifice. — § 18. — Legend of 
the abolition of bloody sacrifice. — § I9. The story of 
Shunahshepha. 

XI. 

The Rig-Veda : Cosmogonv ; Philosophy. — 

Retrospect 414-439 

§ r. The questioning mood of the Rig poets. — § 2. How^ 
was the world made ? — § 3. Cosmogonic theories — § 4. The 
Sacrifice theory. — § 5. The Purusha-Sukta. — § 6. The 
Atman or Self — The First-Born. — § 7. The One Unborn. ' 
— § 8. The great Cosmogonic hymn, X., 129. — § 9. Mono- 
theism in the Rig- Veda. — § 10. Henotheism or Kathenothe- 
ism — Promiscuous identifications of gods with one another 
— Underlying monotheistic tendency. — § ii. The riddle of 
the Rig- Veda. — § 12. Its solution : the Aryas of the Rig- 
Veda — Fire-Worshippers. — §§ 13-15. Retrospect — Results. 

Principal Works Read or Consulted in 
THE Preparation of the Present 
Volume 441-444 

Index 445-457 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



THE CONQUEST OF LANKA, BY THE ARYAN HINDUS, 

(from the ramayana) . . . Frontispiece 
MAP ........ facing I 

a ridge of HIMALAYA' 5 

VIEW FROM THE EAST TOP OF KANCHAN JANGA' . 7 

TAMBUR RIVER AT LOWEST LIMIT OF FIRS ' . . II 

A VIEW IN DEKHAN ; THE GHATS '^ . . . . 17 

A VIEW IN THE MYSORE (dEKHAn) ° . . . I9 
A BANYAN GROVE SHELTERING A SETTLEMENT OF 
HINDU FANATICS PRACTISING ASCETIC AUS- 
TERITY ......... 25 

CLASPING ROOTS OF THE WIGHTIA ' . . . 28 
LIVING BRIDGE (hIMALAYAN FORESt) * , . -31 

TAME LEOPARDS TRAINED FOR HUNTING READY 

FOR THE CHASE ...... 37 

PRIMEVAL FOREST ; MONKEYS SCARED BY A LARGE 

SNAKE 41 

LANDSCAPE AT THE FOOT OF THE VINDHYA . . 43 

A LANDSCAPE IN LAHORE (pENJAb) ^ . . . I05 

SOURCES OF THE GANGES ' . . . . , IIO 



' From Hooker's Himalayan yotirnals. 
^ From Heber's Indian Joui-nal. John Murray : London. 
^ From Lefmann's Geschichte des alien Ittdiens. Muller, Grote, & 
Baumgartel : Berlin. 



ILL USTRA TIONS. 



THE GANGES AT GANGATRI ' . 

DYING HINDU BROUGHT TO THE GANGES TO BREATHE 
HIS LAST .... 

the soma plant ^ . 

the churning of the amrita 

the sixth avatar (or vishnu incarnate as 

parashu-rama) 
brahmans of bengal" . 
low-caste bengalese ^ . 
primitive stone monuments 
santal types * 
festival of serpents^ . 

GONDH types" 

ANCIENT TYPE OF DWELLINGS 

HIMALAYAS 
ANCIENT TYPE OF DWELLINGS 
HEAD OF ANCIENT CHALDEAN (aBOUT 40OO B.C.) 
RECEPTION OF A GURU, OR SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTOR 
THE SHATADRU, OR SHUTUDRI (sUTLEj) * 
THE MATSYA-AVATAR, OR FIRST INCARNATION OF 

VISHNU, IN THE FORM OF A FISH 
OANNES AND THE GOD EA , . . 

SACRIFICIAL IMPLEMENTS * . . . 

SACRIFICIAL DISHES, GRASS, WOOD, ETC. ^ 
PART OF A HORSE SACRIFICE PROCESSION 



IN NORTHERN INDIA 



DISCOVERED IN THE 



PAGE 
III 



169 
189 

282 
283 
289 
291 

297 
301 

345 
347 
354 

355 
404 



' From Lefmann's Geschichie des alien Indietis. Muller, Grote, & 
Baumgartel : Berlin. 

^ From Rousselet's India. J. S. Virtue & Co. : London. 

^ From Hooker's Himalayan Journals. 

* From Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship. 



VEDIC INDIA, 



CHAPTER I. 

THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 

I. " . . . And I saw the blue, holy Ganges, the eternally radi- 
ant Himalaya, the gigantic banyan- forests, with their wide leafy 
avenues, in which the clever elephants and the white-robed pilgrims 
peacefully wander ; strangely dreamy flowers gazed at me, with mys- 
terious meaning ; golden, wondrous birds burst into glad, wild song ; 
glittering sunbeams and the sweetly silly laugh of apes teased me 
playfully ; and from distant pagodas came the pious strains of pray- 
ing priests. . . . " ' 

Only a poet's day-dream ; but how telling each 
feature of the fanciful picture ; and how each quaintly- 
worded sentence lifts you out of the screechy, glary 
reality of steam whistle and electric light, till the 
few perfect lines, like the richly patterned flying-rug 
of Oriental story, land you in the very midst of that 
world of mystery and enchantment, of gorgeousness 
and twilight, restful at once and exciting, which the 
name India has always represented to the Western 
mind. 

> Heine (prose works). 



2 VEDIC INDIA. 

2. Another world ; a world in itself. That is what 
India pre-eminently is, and therein lies the charm. 
The word has been said and repeated times out of 
number, yet seldom with a full realization of the literal- 
ness and extent of its truth. Not even an attentive 
survey of the map is sufficient to impress it on the mind 
anything but vaguely. Comparison and a few figures 
are needed to create a clear and definite perception. 
Nothing less will convince us that we have to do not 
with a country, but with a continent, and that we 
can no more speak of the climate, the people, the 
language of India, in the singular, than of those of 
Europe — which it very nearly equals in size. For a 
line drawn from the mouths of the Indus to those of 
the Ganges gives the distance between Bayonne (on 
the Atlantic coast by the Pyrenees) and Constanti- 
nople ; while another, stretched from the northern- 
most angle, just where the Indus turns southwards, 
to Cape Comorin, equals in length that from Arkh- 
angelsk on the White Sea to Naples. Nor would 
the latter line take in, by a great deal, the entire 
length of the Isle of Ceylon, which is itself not very 
much smaller than Ireland. Were we to include the 
extreme Northeast (Assam) and the Indian lands east 
of the mouths of the Ganges and the Indian Ocean 
— (Burma, Siam, etc.) — we should obtain even more 
imposing parallels ; but we are not concerned in the 
present work with more than the great western penin- 
sula, — nor, strictly speaking, with the whole of that ; 
since the beginnings of political and social life and 
the spiritual development in religion and philosophy, 
that are to be our theme, were perfected almost en- 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 3 

tirely within the northern half of it. This at various 
periods received divers expressive and significant 
native names, but it is found convenient, in our 
own time, to gather it under the general appella- 
tion of Hindustan, roughly bordered in the 
south by the ViNDHYA MOUNTAINS, a chain of 
several ridges, which stretches across the continent 
and divides it into two pretty even halves. All that 
lies south of the Vindhyas is no less sweepingly 
designated as Dekhan.' For general purposes this 
simple division, though somewhat arbitrary, does 
excellently well. Even after a careful survey of these 
proportions, it comes home to us with something of 
a shock when we are told that the population of 
India (the western peninsula alone) amounted in 
1872, on the showing of the census taken that year, 
to over 250,000,000 (not including Burma), or about 
one sixth of the entire human race. 

3. But extent and numbers do not alone, nor even 
chiefly, go to produce the imposing impression we 
associate with the name of India. It is the various 
features of its physical geography, and especially its 
mountain scenery, that make of it a vision of glory 
and majesty. Some countries, like Babylonia and 
Egypt, are what their rivers make them. India — 
physically and intellectually — is the creation of her 
Himalaya. Never was wall of separation more 
towering, more impassable, raised by nature. Scarcely 
an opening along the immense extent of this, the 
most compact and highest range in the world, yields 
a passage to either the rude winds or ruder peoples 

* "South Country," corrupted from " Dakshinapati." 



4 VEDIC INDIA. - - - 

of the North. For ages Eran and Turan might roam 
and fight, and settle and migrate, across and athwart 
that vast table-land of Central Asia, itself the loftiest 
terrace on the face of the earth — and all their random 
waves broke against the stupendous, impervious 
barrier.' Whatever conquering or civilizing swarms 
made their way at various times into the land of the 
Indus, reached it through a few gaps in the lesser 
chains of the Northwest, the HiNDU-KuSH and the 
Suleiman Mountains, the passes that became cel- 
ebrated in history under the names of Khaibar, 
KURAM, and Bholan. The ruggedness and small 
number of even these breaks made such occurrences 
difficult and far between, while the waters which sur- 
rounded the lower half of the continent, being those 
of an ocean rather than of inland seas, for many cen- 
turies served purposes of isolation far more than of 
intercourse. So the great North beyond the moun- 
tains remained a region of mystery and awe, from 
which the oldest native peoples vaguely fancied 
their ancestors to have come down at some time, so 
that some of their descendant tribes were wont, 
even till very lately, to bury their dead with the feet 
turned northwards, ready for the journey to the old 
home, where they were to find their final rest. 

4. Travellers agree that no mountain scenery — 
not that of the Alps, nor any in the Caucasus, the 
Andes, or other famed highlands of the world — is 

' The level of this table-land is itself, on a rough average, 10,000 
feet above the sea, and the Himalaya vs^all rises 10,000 feet above 
that, not including such exceptional giants as Mt. Everest, Dhawal- 
agiri and some others, whose peaks tower up to nearly as many feet 
more. (Mt. Everest-29,002 ft.) 




\ f^ 







■H 



l 



i.i 



6 VEDIC INDIA. 

remotely comparable in splendor and sublimity to 
what the Himalaya offers in almost any of its 
valleys. A continuous ridge nearly double the 
height and five times the length of the Swiss- 
Italian Alps, with a mountain region depending on 
it, the size of Spain, Italy, and Greece put together 
in a row, and of which one small portion, Kash- 
mir, looking like a nook nestled in the north- 
west corner, is as large as all Switzerland, — surely such 
a ridge gives scope to variety of scenery. We arc told 
that it is not uncommon to stand on some point, 
from which the eye takes in a semicircular sweep of 
undulating or jagged snow-line with an iridescent, 
opal-like glory ever playing along it, and with peaks 
rising from it at intervals, — " heaven-kissing hills " 
indeed ! — the least of which is several thousand feet 
higher than Mont Blanc, like pillars of ice support- 
ing a dome of a blue so intense as to seem solid ; 
while at your feet, forest-clothed and cut by valleys, 
stretch down the lower ridges, which descend, tier 
below tier, in four great terraces, into the hot plains 
of Lower Hindustan. If the spectator had taken 
his station on a summit of the northernmost — and 
highest — ridge, somewhere on the northwest 
boundary of Nepal, the grandeur of the physical 
surroundings would be helped by that of memories 
and associations. He would there be at the very 
core and centre of the divine HiMAVAT — to use the 
fine ancient name, which means " Abode of Winter," 
— the region to which the Aryan Hindu has, for 
ages well-nigh untold, looked with longing and rever- 
ence ; for there, on the fairest and loftiest heights 



8 VBDIC INDIA. 

he knew, he placed the dwellings of his gods. There 
they were enthroned in serene and unattainable 
majesty ; there they guarded the hidden storehouses 
of their choicest gifts to men : for there lay the 
mysterious caves of KUVERA, the god of wealth, the 
keeper of gold and silver and other precious ore, and 
of sparkling gems : there, snow-fed and pure, at a 
height of about 15,000 feet, slumber the sacred lakes, 
eternally mirroring in their still waters only the 
heavens and the mountain wilderness that cradles 
them ; and there, too, cluster the springs of the 
great rivers, holiest of things, — the Indus, and the 
SuTLEj, and the Ganges, and the Brahmaputra 
with the most glorious name — " Son of God," — that 
river ever had. To such regions, all wildness and 
mystery, all peace and silence, but for the rush of 
torrents and the music of winds and leaves, world- 
weary men and women, longing for the rest and 
beauty of passionless, eternal things, have come age 
after age, and still come, on long pilgrimages, fre- 
quently stretching into years of self-exile in rude 
forest-hermitages, to drink deep of solitude and 
meditation, and return, heart-healed and renovated, 
to the plains below ; unless — and thrice blessed those 
to whom this is given, — they can stay among the 
mountains and woods, as in the vestibule to a higher 
world, stripped of all earthly clingings, desires and 
repinings, patiently and happily waiting for the final 
release. Thus the Himalayas have ever been woven 
into the deepest spiritual life of the people whose 
physical destinies they helped to shape. They 
literally bounded their view in every sense, and what 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. g 

lay beyond was the great unknown North, where 
dwelt the UttarA-Kura, the " remotest of men " 
— whether the spirits of the happy dead or a fabu- 
lous race enjoying a perpetual golden age of sinless- 
ness and bliss, cannot be made out with absolute 
clearness — perhaps both. 

5. A review of all the conditions and manifesta- 
tions of India's physical life were needed to appre- 
ciate the entire range of the influence exercised by 
that stupendous chain, which, as it is the main 
feature of India's geography, is also the main agent 
of her prosperity. Its eternally renewed, inexhausti- 
ble treasury of snows is drawn on by the whole of 
Hindustan through the channels of its noble and 
numerous rivers, its true wealth-givers, which a thou- 
sand branching smaller ridges, dwindling down to 
mere slopes, direct into as many valleys, breaking 
the mass into a perfect, nicely graded and dis- 
tributed network. Indeed, the privileged land gets 
more than its share of the great store ; for some of 
its largest rivers — the Indus with its companion and 
later feeder, the Sutlej, and also the Brahmaputra — 
have their springs and a certain length of course on 
the northern side of the watershed, thus bringing 
to their own side much of the rainfall which should 
by rights go to the far thirstier plains of Tibet and 
Bokharia. Nor is it only by storing the moisture 
in its snowdrifts and glaciers, by nursing and feed- 
ing India's infant rivers, that the Himalaya benefits 
the land it overshadows and protects: it also secures 
to it the largest rainfall in the world, as far as 
measured to this day, and regulates the " rainy 



10 VEDIC INDIA. 

season," without which even such rivers would be 
insufficient to ensure the productiveness of a soil 
exposed to torrid heat during most of the year. 
Shut off from the coohng gales of the north, India 
depends entirely on that peculiar form of trade- 
v/inds known as the MONSOONS, or rather on the 
southwestern monsoon which sets in in June, laden 
with the accumulated vapors exhaled through many 
months by the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean, 
and condensed in mid-air into huge solid banks of 
clouds. These clouds travel with great swiftness 
northward across the atmosphere or hang over the 
land obscuring the light of day, according as the 
violence of the wind rages or abates, until they are 
dashed against the stony breast of the Himalaya, 
whose elevation infinitely overtops the region of 
drifting vapors. Shattered with the shock, they 
discharge their torrents of rain as would a water- 
fiUed skin cut open by a rock against which it was 
hurled. The monsoon, being abruptly stopped as 
well as the clouds by the double Himalayan wall, 
besides getting involved in the countless narrow 
valleys and winding passes of the intricate highlands 
which lead up to it, combined with the tremendous 
accumulation of electricity, produces the most ter- 
rific thunderstorms of the world — and thus the 
Himalayas detain and confiscate for the exclusive 
benefit of their privileged land the supply of waters 
which cannot sail over their lofty heads, and for 
want of which the great Central Tableland is 
doomed to thirst and comparative barrenness. The 
consequence is that the average yearly rainfalls 




3. — TAMBUR RIVER AT LOWEST LIMIT OF FIRS (HIMALAYA). 



12 VEDIC INDIA. 

recorded for Hindustan, according to the most ex- 
act scientific calculations, give well-nigh incredible 
figures : 125 inches in that part of the Penjab high- 
lands which faces the southwest and is exposed to 
the full force of the monsoon ; 220 inches in similarly 
situated parts of Bengal ; while Assam, raised on a 
higher tier of the Himalayan platforms, and backed 
more closely by the main ridge, claims the honor of 
owning the largest rainfall in the whole world : 481 
inches.* Even this tremendous figure is surpassed 
in exceptional years ; indeed it was all but doubled 
in the year 1861, for which 805 inches were shown, 
366 inches having fallen in the single month of July. 
But this, again, is a visitation nothing short of a 
public calamity, as disastrous in its way as the oppo- 
site extreme. 

6. It would seem that failing crops and dearth 
should be evils unknown in a country blessed with 
rivers so many and so noble, and so bountiful a sky. 
Unfortunately, the contrary is frequently the case, 
owing to the extremely uneven distribution of the 
rainfall, excessive in places and insufficient in others. 
Meteorological observations are carried on at 435 
stations in British India. With such a number the 
distances between the stations cannot be very great ; 
yet the figures returned vary as much as though 
they belonged to different climes. Thus in Penjab, 
not a very extensive province, the average fall dwin- 

' At the station of Cherra-Poonjee. All the figures and scientific 
data which, it is hoped, will lend this chapter an authority beyond 
that of a mere general description, are taken from that mine of pre- 
cise knowledge, W. W. Hunter's hidiatt Empire — Its People^ His- 
tory, and Products (second edition, 1886). 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 1 3 

dies from 125 inches to 7 and even 5, at the stations 
along the Indus, because they are protected by the 
Suleiman range, which breaks the force and direction 
of the monsoon, being attacked by it not in front, 
but sideways, and, so to speak, indirectly. The same 
causes — i.e., the disposition of the various mountain 
ridges and spurs — interferes with the even distribution 
of rain all over Dekhan no less than Hindustan. Thus 
it is that the same year not infrequently brings both 
floods and drought, crops and whole villages being 
swept away in one province, while in another noth- 
ing has come up at all, with the uniform result — 
famine and frightful mortality — not to speak of such 
seasons when the southwestern monsoon itself, for 
some unknown reason, totally fails at the appointed 
time, or comes along feeble and unsteady. And as 
everything in India seems to affect an extravagant 
scale, so a year of famine, even local, is attended 
with horrors well-nigh indescribable, for with a 
population so dense, and, as a rule, so poor and 
improvident, the ravages of actual starvation are 
doubled by its attendant diseases, and deaths are 
numbered by hundreds of thousands. With truly 
Oriental resignation and apathy, the people look to 
the Government for relief, and, when the calamity 
gets beyond the possibility of help, die without a 
word, as they stand, or sit, or lie. The annals of 
India from the time it came under British rule show 
a string of famines, separated by intervals of no 
more than from three to eight years, seldom ten, 
and lasting quite frequently over a year, even as 
long as three years. Some are limited to particu- 



14 VEDIC INDIA. 

lar provinces, but only too many are recorded as 
general. 

7. Of these, the most widely spread and most 
prolonged that India ever experienced,, was that of 
1876-78. The southwest monsoon failed in 1875, 
and again in 1876; and in this latter year the north- 
east monsoon, — ^which sets in in October, and is at 
best a poor resource, coming, as it does, not across 
an ocean but an inland waste, and being, moreover, 
intercepted by the Himalaya, — proved even less 
efilicient than usual. The main crops had perished 
in the drought of 1875, and this disappointment fin- 
ished the rest. Nor did the summer of 1877 bring 
relief, for the southwest monsoon failed for the 
third time, and though the autumn monsoon, for a 
wonder, did arrive laden with some goodly showers, 
the curse^ was not removed from the land until a 
normal rainfall once more visited it in June, 1878. 
All these years the people died — of starvation, of 
cholera, of hunger-fevers ; mortality rose to forty 
per cent, above the usual rates, and as the number 
of births greatly diminished at the same time, and 
the normal proportions were not restored until 1880, 
the total of the population was found in this year to 
have actually decreased during the last four years, 
instead of increasing at a moderate but steady rate, 
as is the case wherever the normal law of life-statis- 
tics is undisturbed and the number of births exceeds 
that of deaths. To give one palpable illustration of 
the ghastly phenomenon, we will borrow the record 
for the single province of Madras from a contem- 
porary work of the highest authority and reliability ' : 
' W. W, Hunter's, The Indian Empire, etc. 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 1 5 

" In 1876, when famine, with its companion, cholera, was already 
beginning to be felt, the births registered in Madras numbered 
632,113, and the deaths 680,381. In 1877, the year of famine, the 
births fell to 477,447, while the deaths rose to 1,556,312. In 1878 
the results of the famine showed themselves by a still further reduc- 
tion of the births to 348,346, and by the still high number of 810,921 
deaths. In 1879 the births recovered to 476,307, still below the 
average, and the deaths diminished to 548,158. These figures are 
only approximate, but they serve to show how long the results of 
famine are to be traced in the vital statistics of a people." 

To complete this appalling picture, it may be 
mentioned that the Briti.sh Government spent, in 
famine relief, during the three tragic years, 1876-78, 
11,000,000 pounds sterling = 55,000,000 dollars, in 
actual cash out of pocket, not including the negative 
expense in loss of revenue. In September, 1877, 
2,600,000 persons were supported by the Govern- 
ment in Madras alone ; of these, a few over 600,000 
were nominally employed on works, and nearly two 
millions were gratuitously fed. It is asserted that 
this last tremendous visitation has been a lesson 
to the British Government that will not fail to bear 
beneficent fruits, in the shape of more numerous and 
better means of communication, an increase in the 
acreage under cultivation, for which there is, fortu- 
nately, still a large margin, and various lesser local 
measures,^ — a combination which is to make up for 
the unequal distribution of the rainfall by a prompter 
and more even exchange and distribution of the 
earth's products between the different provinces. 

8. The Himalayas, with their immense sweep and 
elevation — reaching, in the higher edges, an average 
of 19,000 feet, a height equal to the lower half of 
the atmosphere, are apt to monopolize one's powers 



1 6 VEDIC INDIA. 

of attention, and to fire the imagination to the ex- 
clusion of the many other chains of mountains that 
cut up the Indian continent into numerous larger and 
smaller divisions. Yet some of them are very con- 
siderable, and, on a lesser scale, influence the climate 
and conditions of life of their respective regions 
much in the same way that the giant-ridge of the 
north does those of the entire continent. After the 
fourth and lowest of the Himalayan terraces has 
sloped down into the low, hot riverland which, with 
only a slight swelling to serve as watershed between 
the systems of the Indus and the Ganges, stretches 
across from sea to sea, from the mouth of on.e of these 
royal rivers to that of the other, forming a wide belt 
of plain, the ground slopes up again, southward, into 
the ViNDHYA range, which, broken up into a num- 
ber of confused chains and spurs, interposes its 
broad wild mountain belt between the more properly 
continental Hindustan and the tapering, peninsular 
Dekhan. Although of a more — or rather less — than 
moderate elevation (averaging from 1500 to 4000 
feet, with no peak to surpass or even equal the 5650 
feet of Mt. Abu at its western end), this intricate 
system of " hills," with its exuberant growth of for- 
est and jungle, was very difficult of access until 
pierced with roads and railways by European 
engineering, forming almost as effective a barrier 
between the northern and southern halves of the 
continent, as the Himalayas themselves between the 
whole of India and the rest of the world, and during 
long ages kept the two separate in race, language, 
.and culture. 



1 8 VEDIC INDIA. 

9. A bird's-eye view, embracing the whole of Dek- 
han, would show it to be a roughly outlined triangu- 
lar table-land, raised from one to three thousand feet 
above the sea on three massive buttresses of which 
the broad Vindhya ridge is one, covering the base of 
the reversed triangle, while the sides are represented 
by two chains of unequal height, respectively named 
Western and Eastern Ghats. This name, mean- 
ing " landing stairs," is particularly appropriate to 
the western chain, which rises in serrated and pre- 
cipitous rocky steeps almost from the very sea, only 
in places receding from the shore sufificiently to leave 
a narrow strip of cultivable and habitable land. On 
such a strip the wealthy and magnificent city of 
Bombay is built, very much like the Phoenician cities 
of yore, the Ghats stretching their protecting wall 
behind them just as the Lebanon did behind Tyre 
and Sidon, the sea-queens of Canaan. Like the 
Lebanon, too, they slope inland, directing the course 
of all the rivers of Dekhan from west to east. In 
scenery they are much sterner and grander than 
the Vindhya range, which they, moreover, surpass 
in elevation, their average height being uniformly 
about 3000 feet along the coast, with abrupt 
peaks reaching 4700 feet, and nearly the double 
of that in the considerably upheaved southern angle 
of the peninsula, where they form a sort of knot, 
joining the southern extremity of the Eastern Ghats. 
This latter range is really not a continuous mountain 
chain at all, but rather a series of inconsiderable 
spurs and hills, interrupted at frequent intervals by 
broad gaps, through which the rivers, fed by the 




mi: ^^ ^t'V^ 



20 VEDIC INDIA. 

drainage of the Western Ghats, flow easily and 
peaceably to the sea, known, all too modestly con- 
sidering its size, as the Bay of Bengal. 

lO. There was a time when the whole of Southern 
India or Dekhan was " buried under forests " ; such 
is the description in which all ancient poets agreCo 
It would be vastly exaggerated in the present day, 
for fire and the axe of the husbandman, the timber 
cutter, the charcoal burner, have been at work un- 
checked through some thirty centuries and have 
revelled in wanton destruction after operating the 
necessary clearing. The most ruthless and formida- 
ble foes of the old virgin forests are the nomadic 
tribes, chips of the ancient aboriginal stock, which 
have escaped the influences of the Aryan immigra- 
tion and conquest, and lead even now, in their 
mountain fastnesses, the same more than half savage 
existence which was theirs when the first Aryan set- 
tlers descended into the valleys of the Indus. These 
tribes have a habit of stopping every year in their 
perpetual wanderings and camping just long enough 
to raise a crop of rice, cotton, or millet, or all three, 
in any spot of their native primeval forest where the 
proper season may find them. They go to work 
after a rude and reckless fashion which sets before us 
the most primitive form of agriculture followed by 
the human race at the very dawn of invention. First 
of all they burn down a patch of forest, regardless 
of the size and age of its most venerable giants, and 
as they do not care for the extent of the damage, 
and certainly do not attempt to limit the action of 
the fire, it usually runs wild and devours many square 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 21 

miles in addition to the clearing actually wanted for 
cultivation. Then comes the breaking up of the soil 
thus summarily reclaimed, for which purpose almost 
any implement seems good enough. It is only a few 
tribes that know the use of a rough sort of antedilu- 
vian plough. Most of them content themselves with 
a bill-hook, a spade, or a hoe pick ; nay, a common 
stick sometimes is sufficient to scratch the surface of 
the soil with — which is all that is needed ; the seed 
is then laid in the shallow furrow, sometimes covered 
up and sometimes not, and the tillers sit down confi- 
dently to await results. Now a rich virgin soil, fer- 
tilized with fresh ashes, has quite enough of such 
treatment and a tropical rainfall to yield a return 
from thirty- to fifty-fold. Not infrequently several 
crops are raised simultaneously and on the same 
patch, by the simple process of throwing rice, Indian 
corn, millet, oil seeds, and cotton into the ground 
together, and gathering the crops successively as 
each ripens in its own season. No wonder that the 
nomads prefer such easy and remunerative culture 
to the laborious routine of regular farm work on 
partially exhausted soil. They do sometimes at- 
tempt to get a crop off the same clearing two or 
even three years in succession, but these experiments 
seem only to confirm them in their own easier and 
more attractive method. 

II. It is only of late years that these lawless pro- 
ceedings have encountered some resistance. It is a 
fact scientifically established that the wholesale de- 
struction of forests is attended by baleful results 
to the country where it takes place, the worst of 



22 VEDIC INDIA. 

which are a perceptible change of climate and de- 
crease in the average of the rainfall. The under- 
ground moisture attracted by the roots which it 
feeds, being deprived of the protecting shade, dries 
up and evaporates ; the air necessarily becomes 
drier, and colder or hotter, according to the latitude, 
from exposure to the severe northern blasts or the 
scorching southern sun, while, the large mass of 
moist emanations which a forest contributes towards 
the formation of clouds being cut off, the denuded 
district no longer supplies its own rain, but entirely 
depends on passing clouds and storms. These re- 
sults would be particularly fatal in tropical India, 
living under continual dread of droughts, not to 
speak of the immediate pecuniary loss represented by 
the annual destruction of thousands of gigantic 
valuable timber-trees. This loss is greatly increased 
when we remember that many tropical trees bring a 
considerable income without being cut down ; these 
are the gum-trees, with their rich yield of caoutchouc, 
lac, and other gums.' The British Government at 
last awoke to the absolute necessity of taking vigor- 
ous measures for the preservation of the forests still 
in existence and, as far as possible, the gradual re- 
stocking of those hopelessly thinned or partially 
destroyed. Twelve million acres of forest land are 
now " reserved," i. e., managed as state property by 

^ Lac is not exactly a gum, although it looks and is counted as one. 
It is the resinous secretion of an insect, which forms abundant in- 
crustations around the branches of various trees. But without the 
trees we should not have the gum ; so it is as much an article of 
forest wealth as the real vegetable gums. 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 23 

special state officers ; in these reservations, which 
are carefully surveyed, nomadic cultivation and cat- 
tle-grazing are strictly forbidden, timber-cutting is 
limited by several regulations, and the exuberant 
growth of tropical creepers is ruthlessly cut down. 
Even the " open " forests are subjected to some con- 
trol, and large patches of forest land have been 
turned into nurseries, to grow the finest kinds of 
timber-trees. 

12. Fortunately such is the bountiful produc- 
tiveness of the soil, and so great was the original 
wealth of forest vegetation, that these measures, 
although so belated, came in time to save, in spite 
of the depredations carried on through thousands 
of years, a mass of timber and woodland such 
as few spots on earth can match or even emulate. 
Virgin forests are plentiful even now, and cover 
vast mountain regions, in the Vindhya belt of 
highlands, and especially in the wildernesses of the 
Western Ghats, of which the most conspicuous 
feature is the lordly teak, unanimously voted " king of 
forests " and " prince of timber." It is an indigenous 
variety of oak, which thrives best at a height of from 
three to four thousand feet, and grows in continuous 
masses, absorbing the nourishment of the soil so as 
not to allow any other tree or plant to come up in its 
domain. The only rival of the teak in size and quality 
of timber is the pine — or, more correctly, larch of the 
Western Himalayas, admiringly named " tree of the 
gods," diva ddru (anglicized into " deodar "). It is 
even more aspiring than the teak, and does not reach 
its full grandeur and beauty lower than six thousand 



24 VEDTC INDIA. 

feet above the sea ; but in that elevated region a 
trunk of from twenty to twenty-five feet in circum- 
ference is no rarity, and such is the height to which 
the tree shoots up, that with this thickness of trunk, 
it gives the impression of slimness. It was as famous 
in its way as the cedars of Lebanon, and ancient 
writers tell us that Alexander the Great used it to 
build his fleet. But the Himalaya has, over the 
Lebanon, the advantage of being far out of the way 
of armies and conquests, and therefore still wears 
its royal forest crown unimpaired, while the Leb- 
anon stands almost denuded, and only an occasional 
solitary tree tells of its former glory. 

13. But, valuable and majestic as these two forest 
kings are, they are far eclipsed, both in beauty and 
dimensions, by a native tree, which may be consid- 
ered the most characteristic of Indian vegetation. It 
belongs to the family of fig-trees, to which the soil 
and climate of India are so congenial that it is repre- 
sented, in different parts of the continent, by no less 
than a hundred and five varieties. This particular ! 
variety, specially known ss ^' Indian fig-tree" {I'iciis ] 
Indicd), surely may claim to be admired as the 
paragon not only of its own species, butof all vegeta- 
tion without exception. It takes so influential and 
prominent a place in the life, both physical and moral, 
of India, and is moreover such a marvel of nature, 
that a description of it is not out of place even in 
a necessarily brief sketch, and we may as well borrow 
that given by Lassen in his monumental work*: 

' Chr. Lassen's Indische Alter thumskunde^ 2d ed., vol. i., pp. 
301 ff. 



26 VEDIC INDIA. 

" The Fictis Indica is probably the most astounding piece of vege- 
tation on the face of our earth. From one single root it produces a 
vast green temple of many halls, with cool, shady bowers impervious 
to the light, and seems created expressly and exclusively for the pur- 
pose of supplying shelterless primeval humanity with ready-made 
dwellings. For neither is its wood of much use, nor are its fruits 
eatable for man, and if it inspires the Hindus and their neighbors 
with a profound veneration, it is owing to the surpassing marvel of 
its well-nigh preternatural growth, its indestructible duration and 
everlasting self-renewal ; to which traits the mysterious gloom of its 
galleries and avenues adds not a little, yielding a most grateful 
retreat from the torrid summer heat. The trunk of the tree, at a 
moderate height from the ground, branches out into several stout 
limbs which stretch from it horizontally ; from these, slender shoots 
— the so-called " air-roots" — grow downwards until they reach the 
ground, where they take root, whereupon they increase in thickness 
and become strong supports for the mother-limb. The central trunk 
repeats the branching out process at a greater height, and the second 
circle of limbs in its turn sends down a number of air-roots which 
form an outer circle of props or pillars. As the central trunk increases 
in height, it goes on producing tier upon tier of horizontal limbs, 
and these add row after row to the outer circle of pillars, not indeed 
with perfect regularity, but so as to form a grove of leafy halls and 
verdant galleries multiplying ad inJiniHim. For this evolution is 
carried on on a gigantic scale. The highest tier of horizontal limbs 
is said to grow sometimes at an elevation of two hundred feet from 
the ground, and the whole structure is crowned with the dome of 
verdure in which the central trunk finally culminates. The leaves, 
which grow very close together, are iive inches long by three and a 
half broad, and their fine green color pleasantly contrasts with the 
small red figs, which, however, are not eaten by men." 

Such is the tree, more generally known under its 
popular name of banyan than under the scientific 
one of Ficus Indica^ * the tree which, together 

' This name is supposed to come from the fact that the tree was 
carried westward by Hindu tradesmen called banyans. This 
accounts for its being found in places along the Persian Gulf, in parts 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 2/ 

with the Ganges and the Himalaya, completes the 
picture of India as evoked in a few apt strokes 
the poet's fancy (see p. i). To the elephants that 
wander majestically among its shady walks, and the 
apes that laugh and gambol in its airy galleries, we 
must add the noisy parrots and other birds of no 
less flaming plumage, but softer voice, — and to these 
numerous and playful denizens the berries or small 
figs disdained by men yield grateful and sufificient 
food. It is needless to mention that these trees 
grow singly, not in forests — since one evidently is 
in itself if not a forest, at least a grove of consider- 
able size. How large, indeed, can scarcely be realized 
without the help of a few figures. Fortunately 
many have been accurately measured, and several 
have attained historical celebrity. Thus the central 
trunk of one handsome banyan-tree near Madras is 
known to have been twenty-eight feet in diameter, 
and to have been surrounded by a first circle of 
twenty-seven secondary trunks, each about eleven 
feet in diameter, and from thirty to fifty feet 
in height, and after that by almost innumerable 
others, of decreasing stoutness. The largest known 
banyan tree had over thirteen hundred large trunks, 
and three thousand smaller ones. Armies of six or 
seven thousand men have frequently been encamped 
in its bowers, and it was seen afar as a solitary green 
hillock, until a violent hurricane half destroyed it in 
1783. Besides which, being situated on an island in 

of Arabia (Yemen), and even of Africa, although its native land is 
emphatically the Indian Continent, where it thrives in all provinces, 
except the table-land of Dekhan. 



28 



VEDIC INDIA. 



the Nerbudda, the river has from time to time 
carried away large slices of its domain, till it is now 







7. — clasping roots of the wightia (in the himalayan 
forests). 

reduced to a skeleton of its former glory. What 
maybe its age, no one can tell. Five hundred years 
are historically recorded. But these trees may get 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 29 

to be thousands of years old for aught we can know 
or prove. For since each new trunk, after it has 
become firmly rooted and has reached a certain 
average of thickness, inherits the parent trunk's 
capacity of branching out into horizontal limbs 
which in their turn drop root-tendrils into the 
ground, and consequently absorb the nourishment 
of ever new soil, there is practically no reason why 
the multiplying process should ever stop. It is no 
wonder that almost every village in Hindustan has a 
banyan-tree which it holds as sacred as a sanctuary. 
14. The companions of Alexander who enthusi- 
astically admired the banyan-tree and gave it its 
name of " Indian fig-tree," leave it uncertain whether 
they included under that name another variety, 
which has obtained an even greater renown and im- 
portance from the fact that from the oldest times it 
has been, as it still is, the sacred tree of Indian 
religions. This is the Ficus Religiosa, very well 
known under its pretty native and popular names of 
Ashvattha and Pippala. It is frequently planted 
next to a banyan so as to have them mix their 
foliage and stems, from a superstitious notion that 
they are of different sex and their growing together 
is an emblem of marriage. The contrast between 
the large, massive leaves of the banyan, and the 
light, brilliant, continually vibrating foliage of the 
pippala is striking and grateful to the eye. The 
pippala does not reach the stupendous dimensions 
that the banyan does, nor are its trunks as numer- 
ous. But it has a way, wherever a seed is acciden- 
tally dropped on top of another tree — say a palm 



30 VEDIC INDIA. 

tree — or a building, to sink several fibrous shoots 
through the air down into the ground, and thus in 
time, when these shoots have thickened and hard- 
ened into trunks, to entirely encompass tree or 
building, turning it into a most picturesque and at 
first sight puzzling object. Although the ashvattha 
alone is professedly held sacred, it is a crime to 
destroy or injure either of the two ; both indifferently 
shelter in their verdant halls altars and images of 
gods, as well as the performance of sacrifices and the 
pious contemplations of holy hermits. Still, where 
neither banyan nor pippala is familiar, villagers 
usually pay a certain homage to the largest and 
oldest tree within their radius, no matterof what kind ; 
and it is not the native trees alone which thrive and 
expand under that wonderful sky, but those which 
India shares with Europe and other moderate climes 
also attain dimensions unheard of elsewhere. Thus 
Anquetil Duperron mentions having on one of his 
tramps through the Dekhan enjoyed a noonday rest 
under an elm tree which could cover over six hun- 
dred persons with its shade, and adds : 

" One often meets in India these trees, under whose shade travel- 
lers while away the hottest time of the day. They cook there such 
provisions as they carry with them, and drink the water of the ponds 
near which these trees are planted ; you see there sellars of fried rice 
and fruits in a small way, and crowds of men and horses from various 
parts of the country. 

15. The same exuberance confronts us in almost 
any specimen of India's vegetation. Plants that 
grow elsewhere and in India also are sure to reach 
here extraordinary size and to be amazingly produc- 
tive. Thus the bamboo, so plentiful in China and 



32 VEDIC INDIA. 

other countries of Eastern Asia, attains in India a 
height of sixty feet, and has such enormous leaves 
that a herd of elephants can lie concealed in a bam- 
boo plantation. The banana, which grows wild in 
parts of India and thrives under the lightest cultiva- 
tion all over the continent, seems to bear its luscious, 
nutritious fruits in even greater abundance and to 
be more prolific of new shoots from the same root 
than in other apparently as favored climes. When, 
at the end of the year, the long bearing stalk has 
been eased of its golden burden and cut down at the 
ground, some 1 80 new stalks spring up in its stead, and 
the yearly amount of fruit produced by a plantation 
of these plants is 133 times that of the same space 
planted in wheat.* Nor is the bread-fruit tree want- 
ing in this array of tropical vegetable treasures, and 
as to palms, no less than forty-two varieties wave 
their graceful crowns over the bewitching landscapes 
of both Hindustan and Dekhan, and of these most 
are a source of wealth even more than ornament. 
Chief among them of course comes the cocoa-palm, 
which, with the manifold uses which every part of 
it, from fruit to root, is made to serve, supplies well- 
nigh all the necessaries of life to many an island 
where it is the natives' only resource, while in this 
thrice blessed land it is only one of a host. In the 

' The banana is the same fruit as the pisang of the Isle of Java and 
the Malayan Islands. It has several local Indian names, but the 
scientific one, adopted in botany, isAfusa Sapieiiiiim. It is probable 
that it forms a staple article of the very spare and wholly vegetable 
diet of Indian pilgrims and hermits, as remarked already by ancient 
Greek and Latin writers ; whence the name : Musa Sapientum — - 
" Musa of the Sages." 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 33 

interior of the Isle of Ceylon is a forest of cocoa- 
palms numbering eleven millions of trees, while in 
Dekhan, along the western coast alone, duty was 
paid years ago on three millions. When to all these 
we add cotton, the sugar-cane, and the tea-plant, 
all three natives of India, besides the imported 
cinchona (quinine-tree) and all the native gums, 
spices, and varieties of grains, it really seems as 
though this chosen land had more than its share of 
the good things of creation, and it becomes more and 
more evident that with such a variety of resources 
it ought not to suffer so dreadfully even from pro- 
tracted droughts, and that increase of management 
and improved communications are all that is wanted 
to put an end forever to such horrors as the famine 
of 1876-78.' 

' This is how Herodotus describes the cotton plant in his chapter 
on India. " There are trees which grow wild there, the fruit whereof 
is a wool exceeding in beauty and goodness that of sheep. The 
natives make their clothes of this tree-wool." Of this same "tree- 
wool" (the exact counterpart, by the way, of the German ^' Bau?H- 
wolle" cotton), they also made paper to write on, as was known to 
the Greeks of Alexander's time. — The sugar-cane is so much a native 
of India that we still call its produce by its Sanskrit name, sJiarkara, 
later sakka7-a, but slightly corrupted in our European languages : 
Latin saccharum, Slavic sakhar, German zticker, Italian zucchero, 
Spanish azitcar, French sucre, English sugar — not to mention Arabic 
sukkar 2ii\A. Persian shakar. Even the word "candy" — originally 
crystallized, transparent sugar, sucre candi — is only a corruption of 
the Sanskrit " /^/^(^w^/ia:," a name designating the same article. We find 
no trace of a time when the art of manufacturing molasses and sugar by 
boiling down and clarifying the sap was unknown in India, although 
of course the use of the plant must have begun with chewing and 
sucking chunks of the cane, as is still done by the natives of the Indian 
Islands — and by children in tlie Southern American States and South 



34 VEDIC INDIA. 

1 6. In so necessarily cursory a sketch of India's 
physical features and products, we are forced to 
ignore a vast number of valuable items of her vege- 
table wealth, and may scarcely pause to mention 
even such important plants as rice and indigo. The 
immense variety of her vegetation will be inferred 
from the fact that, besides the distinctly tropical and 
indigenous plants which have just been briefly touched 
upon and a great many more, there is scarcely a 
variety of fruit-tree, timber-tree, food plant, or orna- 
mental plant that Europe and the temperate regions 
of Asia can boast, but makes its home in India and 
thrives there. The cause of such extraordinary 
exuberance is not far to seek r it lies in the great 
variety of climates which in India range through the 
entire scale from hottest tropical to moderately 
warm and even cold. For latitude ensures uni- 
formity of climate only if the land be flat and other- 
wise uniformly conditioned. A mountainous coun- 
try can enclose many climes, with their respective 
vegetations, within a small compass, for the average 
temperature is lowered regularly and perceptibly — 

America. — That tea should be a native of India, not of China, will 
probably be a surprise to many ; yet it grows wild in Assam where 
it sometimes reaches the size of a large tree and which is the real 
home of the plant, whence it was introduced into China where 
there is a quaint legend about it : a very studious and philosophical 
young prince grudged nature the hours of rest, considering them 
wasted, stolen from his beloved studies and meditations. One night 
he got into such a rage at his wretched inability to conquer the numb- 
ness which all his efforts could not prevent from sealing his eyes in sleep, 
that he cut off his eyelids and threw them on the earth — where they 
struck roots and grew into the tea-plant, that foe and antidote of the 
sleepy poppy. 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 35 

one degree to an ascent of from 350 to 500 feet — in 
proportion as the elevation increases ; so that a very 
high range is divided into many narrow belts or 
zones, which answer, as to climate and productions, to 
whole countries of entirely different latitudes. The 
position of the various mountain walls and ridges, 
by catching and directing or entirely intercepting 
this or that wind, and the greater or lesser vicinity 
of the sea, also contribute to form patches of local 
climate, and India, being cut up in every direction 
by innumerable ridges and spurs, ranging from 
moderate hills to the highest solid chain in the 
world, abounds in these, so that a complete review 
of her vegetation would really comprise nearly every- 
thing that grows on the face of the earth, from the 
distinctively tropical flora to the oak forests which 
clothe the first tier of the Himalayan terraces, and 
the white-barked northern birch, which marks, as 
with a sparse, uncertain fringe, the extreme limit of 
mountain vegetation. 

17. The same variety, and for the same reasons, 
marks the animal creation or fauna of the Indian 
Continent, both wild and domestic. Of the latter 
some animals appear to be indigenous, for instance 
the dog, which still roves wild in packs all over the 
Dekhan and portions of Hindustan. There are, too, 
some particularly fine breeds of hunting dogs, large 
powerful animals, which have been a boast of India 
from very old times, and so valuable as to have fig- 
ured on lists of tribute and royal presents, almost 
like elephants. Herodotus tells us of a Persian 
satrap of Babylon under the Akhsemenian kings who 



36 VEDIC INDIA. 

kept so many of these hounds, that " four large vil- 
lages of the plain were exennpt from all other charges 
on condition of finding them in food." It is thought 
that a very handsome dog, portrayed together with 
his groom on a terra-cotta tablet found in Babylon 
may be a specimen of this Indian breed. Such too, no 
doubt, were the dogs presented to Alexander, which 
were said to fight lions. Too well known to be more 
than mentioned is the elephant, the prince of the 
Indian animal world, as well as the fact that there 
are two varieties, one native to Africa and the other 
to India. But to many readers it will be an unfa- 
miliar and amusing detail of rural economy that 
throughout the Himalayan highlands the favorite 
beasts of burden are — sheep and cows! both, how- 
ever, of a peculiar local breed fitted by nature for 
the work. The sheep are large and strong, and are 
driven, loaded with bags, to the marts on the out- 
skirts of the ranges towards the plains, where in 
addition to their burden — generally borax — they 
bring their own wool to market, being shorn of 
which, they return to their mountain pastures with 
a load of grain or salt. The cow, on the contrary, is 
a small variety, the yak, which is also useful in a 
double capacity, for it is the happy owner of a par- 
ticularly fine and bushy tail, which is manufactured 
into a rare and highly prized lace-like texture. It is 
a serviceable little animal, sure-footed and enduring, 
which safely conveys even heavy loads up the steep- 
est paths and through the roughest gorges. It is a 
comfort to think that this patient servant of man at 
least is well cared for and does not end her life in the 



38 VEDIC INDIA. 

shambles, the cow being the one sacred animal of 
India, inviolable in life and limb, and never on any 
account used not only for food, but even for sacrifice. . 
Besides, both custom and religion, in accordance 
with the climate and the abundance of choice and 
varied vegetable food, have long discouraged the 
practice of eating meat, and even the sacrifices 
ceased at an early stage of the country's history to 
consist of bloody offerings. For this reason, one 
great object of raising and keeping cattle almost 
vanishes out of sight in India, and domestic animals 
are chiefly valued for their milk, their wool, and 
their services. 

1 8. Whenever we think of wild animals in con- 
nection with India, the tiger first presents himself 
to our mind. And well he may, for he is the most 
distinctively national beast, and there is no doubt 
whatever that Hindustan is his original home, whence 
he migrated into other parts of Asia, both east and 
west. Low hot plains, with tangled jungles to hide 
in, are his realm ; hence it is that the royal tiger of 
Bengal is the handsomest, fiercest, and altogether 
the most representative specimen of the race. The 
lion was once his rival. The ancient poetry of India 
bears ample witness to the f ict ; indeed it is he, and 
not his more wily and bloodthirsty cousin, who is 
called " the king of beasts." Alexander the Great 
still found lions in Penjab, where he hunted them with 
the hounds that were presented to him for the pur- 
pose. But the gradually changing conditions of life, 
the advance of civilization with the attendant de- 
struction of the noble forests where he loved to 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 39 

range, gradually made existence impossible to him, 
until now there are only a few lion-families left in 
one particular forest tract in the peninsula of 
Gujerat where they are strictly preserved by the 
Government. Not so the tiger. Nothing repressed 
him, and though, no doubt, the jungles of Bengal 
were his first and favorite haunt, he spread west- 
ward as fast as the lion retreated, for the two never 
have been known to dwell within hearing or meeting 
distance of each other. As long as he has plenty of 
antelopes, deer, and wild hogs to feast upon he is 
not a very objectionable neighbor ; in fact he is, in 
such districts, to some extent a protector of the 
native agriculturist, as all those animals are exceed- 
ingly destructive to crops. When he is reduced to 
domestic cattle, his vicinity is of course troublesome 
and ruinous ; but nothing can express the horror of 
having " a man-eater " in the district, i. e., a tiger, 
generally an old one, which has once tasted human 
flesh and blood, and thenceforth, from a hideous 
peculiarity of his nature, will not satiate his hunger 
with any other prey. Tigers at all times, unlike the 
lion and most beasts of prey, kill more victims than 
they need for food, and this instinct of sheer killing 
seems to grow fiercer and fiercer in a man-eater. 
Without referring to mere sportsmen's reports, which 
may be suspected of romance and partiality, there 
are the dry statistic records with such figures as 
these : 108 persons killed in one place by a single 
tiger in three years ; an average of about 80 a year 
destroyed by another in the course of several years ; 
thirteen villages abandoned and 250 acres of rich 



40 VEDIC INDIA. 

paying land thrown out of cultivation from terror of 
a third; and a fourth, as lately as 1869, killing 127 
people and stopping a public road for many weeks, 
until an English sportsman killed him. The aggre- 
gate of these isolated cases sums up tremendously. 
Thus, for the single year of 1877, we have a total of 
819 persons and 16,137 head of cattle killed by tigers, 
and for 1882—895 persons and 16,517 cattle — which 
reports seem to establish an appalling average. It 
is some satisfaction to place to the credit side of the 
balance, for 1877, 1579 tigers killed by native 
hunters, and 1726 for 1882, which, however, cost 
the Government respectively £'^777 and ^4800 in 
rewards. Yet, incredible as it may appear, the loss 
of life from tigers and other wild beasts is as nothing 
compared to that caused by snakes. The serpent tribe 
is perhaps more numerous in India than in any other 
country, and the most poisonous varieties seem to 
have congregated there. The openness of the dwel- 
lings imperatively demanded by the climate, and the 
vast numbers of people sleeping in the open air, in 
groves, forests, gardens, etc. give them chances of 
which they make but too good use, swarming in the 
gardens and seeking shelter in the houses during the 
rainy season. As a consequence, death from snake- 
bite almost equals an epidemic. In that same year 
of 1877, 16,777 human victims perished by this means, 
although i^8ir reward were paid for the destruction 
of 127,295 snakes, while in 1882, 19,5 19 persons were 
reported to have been killed by snakes as compared 
with 2606 by tigers, leopards, wolves, and all other 
wild beasts together. That year ^1487 were paid in 




lO. PRIMEVAL FOREST ; MONKEYS SCARED BY A LARGE SNAKE. 



42 VEDIC INDIA. 

rewards for the destruction of 322,421 venomous 
reptiles. 

19. The insect world is not less profusely repre- 
sented than the other divisions of animated creation, 
and though it successfully does its best to make life 
disagreeable to those who have not sufficient wealth 
to protect themselves by costly and ingenious de- 
vices, it seems ridiculous to mention the tiny nuis- 
ance in one breath with the huge standing disaster 
the country possesses in its tigers and snakes. Be- 
sides, there are two insects which in almost any land 
would be considered a sufficient source of income, 
and which here step in as an incidental and second- 
ary resource. They are the insect that produces the 
valuable and inimitable lac-dye, and especially the 
silk-worm. This latter, like the tea plant, we are 
apt to hold as originally the exclusive property of 
China, and imported thence into every country 
where it is raised. Yet it appears that it is as 
much an indigenous native of India as of China, 
like several other products, and, among them, that 
most vital one — rice. The mulberry tree, of course, 
is cultivated in connection with the silk industry, 
but by no means universally, as there are many vari- 
eties of the worm which content themselves with 
other plants. That which feeds on the leaves of the 
ashvattha {Fie us Religiosa) is called deva (divine), on 
account of the sacredness of the tree, and very 
highly prized — nor altogether on superstitious 
grounds, for the thread it spins is said to be quite 
equal, if not superior, to that of the mulberry worm, 
both in glossy beauty and flexible strength ; perhaps 



44 VEDIC INDIA. 

this may be the effect of a gum-like substance con- 
tained in the sap of both this tree and the banyan, 
and which in both frequently exudes from the bark, 
thickens into a kind of caoutchouc, and is gathered 
for sale and use. 

20. Even so brief and cursory a review of India's 
physical traits and resources would be incomplete 
without some mention of the mineral wealth which, 
for ages, has been pre-eminently associated with the 
name. To say "India" was to evoke visions of 
gold, diamonds, pearls, and all manner of precious 
stones. These visions, to be just, were made more 
than plausible by the samples which reached the 
west from time to time in the form of treasures of 
untold variety and value, either in the regular ways 
of trade, from the Phoenicians down, or by that 
shorter road of wholesale robbery which men call 
conquest ; and indeed, but for the glamour of such 
visions and the covetousness they bred, India might 
not have seen most of the nations of Europe fight 
for a place on her soil, from a mere foothold to 
whole realms, and might have remained free from 
invasion and foreign rule. Yet, strangely enough, 
it now turns out that her chief and real mineral 
worth lies not so much in the gold and precious 
stones whose glitter fascinated the nations far and 
near, as in the less showy but far more permanently 
useful and inexhaustible minerals and ores: the coal 
fields which underlie most of central Dekhan ; the 
natural petroleum wells of Penjab, Assam, and 
Burma ; the salt which both sea and inland salt 
lakes yield abundantly by evaporation, and which in 



THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. 45 

the northeast of Penjab is quarried like any stone 
from a range of solid salt cliffs, unrivalled for purity 
and extent ; the saltpetre which covers immense sur- 
faces of the soil in the upper valleys of the Ganges ; 
the iron which is found in almost all parts of the 
continent ; the rich copper mines of the lower Hima- 
layas, — not to speak of various quarries — building 
stone, marble, slate, etc. As for gold, although 
India has always distinctly ranked as a gold-pro- 
ducing country, and many of her rivers have been 
known from oldest times to carry gold, and gold- 
washing has always been going on in a small way 
here and there and everywhere, so that the metal 
probably exists in many places, and very possibly in 
large quantities, yet the industry of gold-seeking 
does not appear to thrive ; it is carried on in a desul- 
tory, unbusinesslike manner which yields but meagre 
returns. Silver is no longer found anywhere in the 
country, and the famed diamonds of Golconda are 
nothing nowadays but a legendary name, nor are 
other gems, with the exception, perhaps, of car- 
nelian, onyx, agate, and lapis lazuli, found in much 
greater abundance ; either the deposits are ex- 
hausted, or, more probably, the enormous quantities 
which came out of the country in the way of pres- 
ents, trade, and conquest, and those which still partly 
fill the treasuries of native princes and temples, were 
due to accumulation through the many, many cen- 
turies of India's seclusion, before the land became 
known and open to other nations. 

2 1 . But all and more than the visionary legends of 
fantastic wealth coupled with the name of India gen- 



46 VEDIC INDIA. 

erally, is realized in India's most southern and latest 
annexed appendage, the Isle of Ceylon. That island, 
about three fourths the size of Ireland, is in very 
truth what the adjoining continent was long errone- 
ously thought to be : the richest mine in the world 
of the rarest, choicest precious stones of nearly every 
known kind ; independently of and apart from its 
pearl-fisheries, which yield the most perfect pearls 
in existence, surpassing even those of the Persian 
Gulf in purity and soft radiance. Nor is the island 
less surpassingly endowed with regard to vegetation. 
The interior is one huge tropical forest, where all 
the palms, timber-trees, gum-trees, spice- and fruit- 
trees of India thrive side by side with those of Europe 
and other temperate zones ; the cotton there grows 
to the size of a real tree, and justifies the apparently 
exaggerated accounts of the Greeks (see p. ) ; and 
to all these must be added the cofTee-tree which 
grows wild, and the wonderful bread-tree, not to 
speak of the vanilla vine, cinnamon, and other most 
valuable plants, and, of late, the successful tea 
plantations. In its animal creation, Ceylon is not 
less blest : it abounds in most kinds of handsome 
and useful animals, except horses, which are entirely 
wanting, and is renowned for its breed of elephants, 
the finest and cleverest, though not the largest, in 
India. If to all these advantages we add a soil that 
regularly yields three harvests a year, a glorious and 
most wholesome climate, not afflicted with extreme 
heat, notwithstanding the island's position so near 
the equator, but maintained on a mild and pretty 
uniform level by a perfect combination of sea and 



THE WONDERLAND OE THE EAST. 



A7 



mountains, and, as a consequence, absence of fever 
and all malarial affections, we shall understand why 
this chosen spot, which Milton might have had in 
his mind's eye when he spoke of isles 

" That, like to rich and various gems, inlay 
The unadorned bosom of the deep," 

has been called the jewel casket and finishing glory 
of India ; and we may pre-eminently apply to it the 
name of "Wonderland of the East," even though it 
assuredly beseems all this peerless portion of our 
habitable earth. 




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9 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ARYAS. 

" Who can see the green earth any more 
As she was by the sources of Time ? 
Who imagines her fields as she lay 
In the sunshine unworn by the plough ? 
Who thinks as they thought, 
The tribes who then roamed on her breast, 
Her vigorous, primitive sons ? " 

Matthew Arnold, from T/ie Future. 

I. In a work which undertakes to present, in a 
set of parallel pictures, the history of several nations, 
differing in race, culture, and religion, but covering 
pretty much the same span of the world's age, it is 
at times very difficult to keep them well apart, be- 
cause the influences to which they mutually subject 
one another cannot be ignored, unless we are willing 
to content ourselves with fragmentary and fanciful 
sketches, leaving a good half of the characteristic 
traits either indistinct or unaccounted for. Tljis 
difficulty increases considerably when we have to 
do with two nations derived from the same stock, 
and exhibiting such striking affinities, such undenia- 

48 



THE ARYAS. 49 

ble resemblances, as to betray their original identity 
at every turn and make us feel as though we can 
actually grasp and hold fast the time when they 
were as yet undivided, even though that time may 
lie far beyond all calculable bounds of historical 
research. Two such sister nations we have in the 
Aryan Hindus and Eranians. It is impossible to do 
justice to the history and culture of the one without 
drawing the other into the same field of vision and 
comparing the two, — a process which necessarily 
brings out their common origin, by presenting identi- 
cal or similar features, obviously borrowed by neither 
from the other, but inherited by both from a common 
ancestry. It was thus that in a former volume, 
when treating of the Eranians, their culture and 
their religion, we were unavoidably led to trespass 
on the ground reserved for the present work.^ We 
found it impossible, " in dealing with the Aryan 
peoples of Eran, to separate them entirely from 
their brethren of India, these two Asiatic branches 
of the Aryan tree being so closely connected in their 
beginnings, the sap coursing through both being so 
evidently the same life-blood, that a study of the 
one necessarily involves a parallel study of the 
other." ^ Thus we were actually compelled to stop 
for a brief glimpse at the conditions which regulated 
the existence of the ancestors of both in the period 
that has been called " Indo-Eranian,"z. ^., the period 
before the future settlers of Eran and the future 
conquerors of India had separated, before they had 

\^' See Story of Media, Babylon, and Persia, chap, ii.— v. 
2 Ibid., p. 36. 
4 



50 VEDIC INDIA. 

severally wandered into the countries, far distant 
from one another and from the primeval home, of 
which they were to win and hold possession through 
well-nigh countless future ages. 

2. A cursory sketch was sufficient for the compre- 
hension of Eranian history, because the nations of 
this branch soon diverged very widely from the 
parent stock, and went their own separate and 
strongly individual way. Not so the peoples who 
descended into India and settled there. The nations 
of this branch were merely the continuation of the 
mother trunk. They did not break with any of their 
ancestral traditions, but, on the contrary, faithfully 
treasured them, and only in the course of time and 
further migrations, developed from them, not an 
opposition, but a progressive and consistent sequel, 
in the shape of a more elaborate religion and, later 
on, philosophical systems and speculations, based on 
the same principles, which, in ruder, simpler forms, 
had been their intellectual inheritance from the first. 
At the present stage of our studies, therefore, we 
must pause for a longer and more searching retro- 
spect, if we mean to follow out and comprehend the 
long and gradual evolution of the people who, of all 
Orientals, are nearest akin to us in thought, in feel- 
ing, in manner, and in language. By doing so, we 
feel assured that we are reconstructing the past of 
our own race at its entrance on the career of, con- 
scious humanity, that we are learning how our own 
fathers, in incalculably remote ages, not only lived 
and labored, but thought and prayed, — nay, how 
they began to think and to pray. 



THE ARYAS. 51 

3. A fascinating task, but not as easy as it would 
seem. For, if learning be a difficult achievement, far 
more difficult is that of z/!;zlearning, — forgetting what 
we have assimilated through years of that conscious 
or unconscious process of absorption which not only 
fills but, so to speak, permeates our brains, moulds 
and shapes them, till our mental acquirements be- 
come part of our being, in fact the most tenacious, 
the most inalienable part of ourselves. Yet this is 
exactly what we must strive to do, if we would suc- 
cessfully identify ourselves with these beginnings of 
all the things of which we, in this our span of life, 
are witnessing the bloom, the fruition, the perfec- 
tion, and, alas! in many cases, the decay. We must 
not forget for a time what forms as much a part 
of our intellectual consciousness, as breath or motion 
does of our physical existence. This mode of work- 
ing backward, dropping item after item of our intel- 
lectual ballast as we go, alone enables us to divest 
ourselves of our obtrusive and narrow self and to 
put ourselves in the place of our remote progeni- 
tors, to think their eager but as yet untutored 
thoughts, to feel with their simple directness, their 
unsophisticated intenseness. 

4. Behold them, then, our forefathers, the Aryas, 
in their early inland home — which, let it be at once 
understood, is neither India nor the Eran of the 
Zoroastrians, but some region, not as yet ascertained, 
though eagerly and patiently sought for, — where the 
ancestors of both these and many more nations have 
dwelt as one undivided race for many ages before 
that ever spying, ever prying spirit of inquiry, which 



52 VEDIC INDIA. 

is one of the chief characteristics of our race, first 
stirred in their settlements. At that moment we 
already find a people, rude and primitive, but by no 
means wholly savage or barbarous, nor even what is 
usually understood by " a very young people." For 
the earliest glimpse it is permitted us to cast into their 
dwelling-places and mode of life shows them pos- 
sessed of domestic arts and crafts which, rudimentary 
as they may appear to us, imply centuries of undis- 
turbed sojourning in the land of their primary 
choosing, under conditions favoring the training and 
development of the most essential features of moral 
and social culture, as well as of material prosperity. 
A people must have passed out of the purely no- 
madic stage,' to be found established in rural home- 
steads ; nor can it be said to be in its infancy when, 
after having achieved the momentous transition, 
it has gone beyond the solitary family life in de- 
tached dwellings — huts built on a patch of enclosed 
land,^ — and has learned to cluster these homesteads 
into villages and boroughs, for mutual protection 
and assistance, — where their daily life presents the 
normal and healthful combination of agricultural 
labor and cattle-breeding, in short the manifold occu- 
pations which, in our languages, go under the name 
of " farming," — without excluding the e,xercise of 
hunting, now, however, a relaxation more than a 
necessity, a means of introducing wholesome variety 
into the monotony of the daily farm-fare, and also of 
repelling and destroying the ravenous night-prowlers, 
the wild creatures of the woods and the desert, 

^^ ' See Sto7y of Chaldca, ch. i., " The Four Stages of Culture." 



THE ARYAS. 53 

Once arrived at this really advanced stage of culture, 
the Aryas, like all primitive races, must have ad- 
vanced rapidly in the work of social organization, 
for we ever find intellectual improvement developing 
hand in hand with material prosperity. It is an at- 
tractive and instructive task to reconstruct their life 
from such imperfect and scattered scraps of informa- 
tion as we can dispose of. 

5. The first feature which it pleases us to note in 
these early settlements of our own, still undivided, 
race, is the reverence for family ties and duties, 
firmly established and held sacred. The father ac- 
knowledges himself the protector, supporter, and 
nourisher of his own immediate family ; brothers and 
sisters live on terms of mutual assistance and cheer- 
ful companionship, sharing in the manifold duties 
of house and farm. The degrees of relationship by 
marriage are determined to a nicety, and persons 
connected by this secondary bond are close friends 
and allies. Thus the family grows into the tribe; 
the head of the one remains the head, the king, of 
the other.* The several tribes, at first more or less 
closely related, live, as a rule, on terms of peaceful 
neighborliness and hospitality. If quarrels do occur 
and lead to armed strife, they mostly arise out of 
some dispute about flocks and herds, and, at a 
later time, out of the competition between kin- 
dred tribes striving for supremacy or the appro- 
priation of more land. At the more primitive 
era the principal occasion of warfare was one calcu- 
lated to tighten the bond of race rather than loosen 

' See Story of Chaldea^ cli. i., especially pp. 123-125. 



54 VEDIC INDIA. 

it, being self-defence, the constant necessity of guard- 
ing against the raids of innumerable, lawless hordes 
of nomads, mostly of non-Aryan stock, who, mounted 
on their fleet and indefatigable steppe-ponies, kept 
continually hovering and circling round the pasture 
lands and settlements, whose prosperity excited their 
greed. 

6. Physically, the Aryas, as we can picture them 
from certain indications, are of high stature, and 
powerful build, white-skinned, fair-haired, and prob- 
ably blue-eyed. Ages of seclusion in their first home 
have moulded these originally local characteristics 
into a permanent, indelible type, which no amount 
of uniting with other races will ever be able wholly 
to obliterate. To the development of this noble 
physique their mode of life — mostly outdoor labor 
in moderation — and their favorable surroundings, 
must have contributed not a little: a temperate cli- 
mate inclining to the cold, a land of alternate woods 
and plains, milk-food in abundance, as well as meat 
and wheat, pastoral and agricultural pursuits, — such 
conditions of existence, if continued through many 
centuries, undisturbed by intercourse with men of 
different blood and customs, must result in an excep- 
tionally fine race. Nor are these natural advantages 
unassisted by art and crafts. The Aryas are prompt 
and skilful in wielding weapons, which, it is true, are 
mostly still of hewn and polished stone, shaped and 
sharpened at an incalculable cost of time and labor, 
but by no means inefficient for all their clumsiness. 
Besides, they have lately learned the use of metals 
also : gold and silver certainly, and a third metal not 



THE ARYAS, 55 

fully identified yet — perhaps iron. They can fashion 
and handle a rude sort of plough, which, uncouth as 
it is, has not only survived its original inventors, but 
is still in use in more or less remote parts of every 
country of Europe, owing to the conservatism and 
stubbornness of the peasantry all over the world, 
wherever they have not been brought into direct 
contact and brisk intercourse with the greater or lesser 
centres of trade and traffic. Their garments are 
made of skins sewed together or of spun and woven 
wool. They dwell in houses provided with doors, 
and surrounded by yards, (or gardens), which simply 
means " enclosed grounds." They also have hurdles 
for their cattle and domestic animals — a necessary 
addition, for they possess very nearly every kind that 
we own : horses and asses, sheep and goats, pigs and 
geese, with the dog to guard them, the mouse to pilfer 
their stores, the wolf and the bear to endanger their 
folds ; they grind their grain, they cook and bake, and 
have a horror of raw meat. They build boats and 
skiffs and navigation is known to them, though only 
on lakes and rivers, for they have never beheld a sea 
or ocean. Their minds are open to all impressions ; 
their thoughts are busy with the phenomena of 
nature ; but in abstract speculation they have not yet 
reached a very advanced stage — for they can count 
only up to a hundred. 

7. Such we can picture to ourselves the Aryas, 
dwelling together as one undivided nation, speaking 
one language, holding one worship, one mode of life, 
before they yield to the impulse of migration which 
has seized on all peoples at certain stages of their 



56 veDic in ma. 

existence, when they — whether from want of room, 
or family discords, or the restlessness of awakening 
curiosity and unconscious sense of power, or from 
all these combined — begin to separate, and detach- 
ment after detachment leaves the mother trunk, 
never to return and never again to meet, save in ages 
to come, mostly as enemies, with no remotest mem- 
ory of a long severed tie, of a common origin. 

8. As tradition itself does not begin its doubtful 
records till ages after this original separation, and the 
dawn of history finds most of the nations which we 
ascribe to the Aryan stock established on the lands 
of which they had severally taken possession, it fol- 
lows that we have just been contemplating a picture 
for which we have not the slightest tangible 
materials. No monuments, no coins, inscriptions, 
hieroglyphic scrawls, reach back as far as the time we 
have endeavored to retrace. Indeed, the first really 
historical monuments of any kind at our command 
are the inscriptions, caused to be engraved in various 
parts of Hindustan, on pillars and rocks, by ASHOKA, 
a king who reigned as late as 250 B.C. The same 
applies to architecture ; no buildings or ruins of 
buildings are to be traced further back than 500 B.C. 
Was it then an imaginary sketch, the features of 
which were put together at random, supplied by 
fancy or any trite description of pastoral life? So 
far from it, we can boldly say : would that all infor- 
mation that comes down to us as history were as true 
to nature, as well authenticated, as this short sketch of 
an age on which not even the marvellously trained 
skill of modern historical investigation could fasten 



THE ARYAS. 57 

by so much as a single thread. But where history 
throws down the web, philology takes it up and 
places in our hands the threads which connect us 
with that immeasurable past — threads which we have 
held and helped to spin all the days of our lives, but 
the magic power of which we did not suspect until 
the new science, Ariadne-like, taught us where to 
fasten them, when we have but to follow ; these 
threads are — our languages. 

9. A hundred years ago, several eminent English 
scholars resided in India, as servants of the East 
India Company, and, unlike their coarse and igno- 
rant predecessors, thought it their duty to become 
familiar both with the spoken dialects and the liter- 
ary languages of the country they helped to govern. 
They were earnest and enthusiastic men, and the 
discovery of an intellectual world so new and ap- 
parently different from ours drew them irresisti- 
bly on, into deeper studies than their duties re- 
quired. Warren Hastings, then the head of the 
executive government, representing the Company in 
India, cordially patronized their efforts, from political 
reasons as well as from a personal taste for scholarly 
pursuits, and not content with lending them his 
powerful moral countenance, gave them material 
assistance, and even urgently commended them to 
the Board of Directors at home. It was then that 
Charles Wilkins translated portions of the great 
national epic, the Mahabharata, and compiled the 
first Sanskrit grammar in English ; that Sir 
William Jones ^ translated the national code 

' The old enemy and traducer of Anquetil Duperron. — See 
Story of Media, etc., pp. 12-15. 



58 VEDIC INDIA. 

known as " The Laws of Manu " ; while Cole- 
BROOKE wrote masterly treatises on Hindu law, 
philosophy, literature, and mathematics. These in- 
defatigable learners could not but be struck with the 
exceeding- resemblance, nay frequently the obvious 
identity, between a great number of Sanskrit words 
and the corresponding words in all or many of the 
living languages of Europe, as well as in the dead 
tongues of ancient Greece and Rome, the old 
Teutonic and Slavic idioms. The great future 
importance of this discovery at once flashed on the 
mental vision of these gifted and highly trained 
students, and comparative studies were zealously 
entered upon. Great and noble was the work which 
these men did, with results, on the whole, marvel- 
lously correct ; but, as is always the case with such 
zealous pioneering in a new field, some of the con- 
clusions they arrived at were necessarily immature 
and misleadingly positive and sweeping. Thus it 
was for many years universally believed that Sanskrit 
was the mother tongue, to which all languages could 
be traced. This theory was not by far as absurd as 
that which had been set up some time previously by 
certain religious zealots who, from an exaggerated 
regard, untutored by science, for all that is connected 
with the " inspired books " of our creed, went so far 
as to assert that Hebrew was the mother of all the 
languages in the world. Still it might, from its 
plausibility and the large percentage of truth it con- 
tained, have done much harm, by leading people to 
imagine that they had touched the goal, when, in 
reality, they were at the initial stage of knowledge ; 



THE ARYAS. 59 

but the question was placed on its proper ground by 
the somewhat later discovery of a still more ancient 
language, standing to Sanskrit in the relation of 
Latin to French, Italian, and Spanish, or Old German 
to English. Since then Jacob Grimm discovered 
the law that rules the changes of consonants in their 
passage from language to language, — the law that 
bears his name, although it is but one among the 
many titles to glory of that most indefatigable, most 
luminous of searchers. The unity of Aryan speech 
is now established beyond the possibility of a doubt. 

10. This common language, or — more correctly 
— this common ancestor of the so-called Aryan 
family of tongues, would prove, could it be raised 
from the dead, to be that of the race, whose mode 
of life and state of culture we just now attempted 
to reconstruct. Reconstruct from what ? From 
nothing but the words, which are the only heirloom 
they have transmitted to us, their late and widely 
scattered successors. Only words. But as words 
stand for thoughts, and knowledge, and feelings, 
this heirloom implies all our histories, all our philo- 
sophical systems, our poetry — in fact, all that we 
are and will be. It is the nutshell in the fairy 
tale, out of which the endless web is forthcoming, 
unrolling fold after fold of marvellous designs and 
matchless variety of color. 

11. If, then, in the oldest offspring of this imme- 
morial language, we find words which we meet alike 
in most Aryan languages of a later growth and in 
our present living ones, unchanged or having under- 
gone such slight alterations that any intelligent per- 



6o VEDIC INDIA. 

son will immediately know them, — and if those 
words, all or nearly all, concern the most essential 
and therefore most ordinary features of social and 
domestic life, the simplest pursuits and relations and 
chief necessaries of our material existence — have we 
not there evidence amounting to proof, that the rela- 
tions determined by those words existed, that the 
things called by those names were in use, the actions 
expressed by those verbs were habitually done, 
amongst and by those men, the ancestors of many of 
us, several, nay, many thousands of years ago ? And 
are not the " points " thus obtained sufficient, lack- 
ing any visible or tangible materials, to arrive at 
something much more substantial and reliable than 
mere conjecture on what the life, pursuits, and ideas 
of those men may and must have been ? Could we 
apply the test to the short sketch from which we 
started, it would bear out every single word of it, — 
literally " every word," for it is composed of noth- 
ing but words, which have been transmitted from 
the original language to all the languages of the 
Aryan stock, i. e., later Sanskrit and the Hindu dia- 
lects, ancient Avestan and modern Persian, and the 
tongues of the Greek, Latin, Teutonic, Slavic, and 
Celtic branches. 

12. Almost everybody will have noticed that 
words go in families. That is — several words, and 
sometimes a great many, are connected with or 
derived from one another, all expressing different 
forms or shadings of one common fundamental 
idea. On examining such words more closely, it 
will turn out that this common idea resides in a cer- 



THE ARYAS. 6 1 

tain combination of sounds which will be found in 
all. This combination we detach from the words to 
which it gives their general meaning, and call it " a 
root," Let us take as an example the following words : 
^^ stay, stand, stable, stiff, stile, stalwart, staff, stick, 
stack, stump, stem, stool, stead, state, station, statue, 
statute, stoic," and many more, with all their numer. 
ous derivatives, like steady, unsteady, unstable, statid- 
ard, statuary, statutory, etc. Different as these 
words are, they all ring the changes on one central 
idea — that of permanence, stability, remaining fixed 
in one place. It will readily be seen that this 
central idea is conveyed by the combination ST, 
which is as the soul of all these words. In philo- 
logical parlance, ST is " the root from which they all 
sprang" ; these and a vast number more, for ST being 
a Sanskrit root, it runs through all the Aryan lan- 
guages, ancient and modern, and is in each unusually 
prolific ; if counted, the words to which it serves as 
family bond, would go into the hundreds. Let us 
now take the Sanskrit root AR, of which the general 
and original meaning is " plough." We find it in- 
tact in Latin and Italian arare, in Slavic arati — " to 
plough " ; in Greek arotron, Latin aratrum, Tchekh 
(so-called Bohemian, a Slavic language) oradlo — " a 
plough " ; in English arable — " fit to be ploughed " ; 
in Greek aroura, Latin arvum — " a ploughed field," 
whence aroma, originally beyond a doubt signifying 
the peculiar fragrance of a ploughed field, of the 
loose, moist, upturned earth. It has even been sug- 
gested — but the attractive suggestion has unfortu- 
nately not proved capable of sufficient scientific 



62 VEDIC INDIA. 

proof — that the name Arya itself is connected with 
this root, and that the people who took it for 
their own originally meant to call themselves " the 
people who plough," in proud distinction from 
their sheep-raising, steppe-roaming, robber-neigh- 
bors-, the Tura.' At the time at which we begin 
to know them, " Arya " meant " noble," " exalted," 
" venerable " ; the name had become something al- 
most sacred, it embodied the Aryan peoples' national 
pride, — or a feeling deeper still, more intense, en- 
during, and inspiring : their pride of race, and that 
down to a very late period ; for was not Dareios, 
the great Persian king, careful to preface his family 
genealogy in his famous inscriptions by the state- 
ment : " I am an Arya, the son of an Arya " ? 

13. Neither space nor the scope of the present 
work allow of our taking up the above sketch and 
justifying every feature of it by a thorough study of 
each of the words that suggest it. That would be 
simply embarking on a treatise of comparative phi- 
lology. Still, as words have of late acquired such 
immense importance in the study of what may be 
called " prehistoric history " — an importance as great 
as the things found in the caves, mounds, and bar- 
rows that sheltered primitive humanity in life and 
death, or, in geology, the fossils and imprints which 
reveal the meaning of the various rocks and 
strata, — it will not be an unnecessary digression, 

' "Arya and Tura," in later historical times " Eran and Turan;" 
the same distinction ever, the same opposition, the same battle-cry. 
{E7'dn, Ef'anian is only a slightly altered form of Aryan ; so is Erin^ 
the national name of /rdand.) 



THE ARYAS. 63 

if we pause awhile to trace a few of the words which 
are our only key, and by no means an insuflticient 
one, to the material and intellectual life of the early 
Aryan world. This brief review will at the same 
time serve to indicate and illustrate the processes of 
philological research in their special bearings on 
historical reconstruction. 

14. We have already had a hint of the great im- 
portance which attached to the cow as a factor in 
the life of early Aryan communities. Indeed we 
may safely proclaim the cow the characteristic 
animal of the Aryan race. We find it the companion 
of every Aryan people, one of the chief conditions of 
their existence ; it stands to the Aryas in exactly 
the same relation that the sheep does to the Tura- 
nians. The very fact of the cow's predominance in 
a people's life is sufficient proof of that people's 
having reached the settled stage of existence^ — the 
pastoral-farming, because the cow, unlike the sheep, 
is unfit for a nomadic life and incapable of bear- 
ing the hardship of continual change and march- 
ing. Those who use oxen as beasts of burden and 
draught know very well that they have to be driven 
at an easy pace, by short stages, and moreover posi- 
tively require one full day of rest at least in seven or 
eight, if they are to be kept in anything like toler- 
able condition. They are also very fastidious as to 
their food, and the least neglect in the care of them, 
the least pressure of overwork, cause loss of flesh 
and spirits, agonizingly sore hoofs, then illness and 
death in a very short time. 

15. The Sanskrit name of the cow is GO, plural 



64 VEDIC INDIA. 

gAvas, and this short radical we find running, with 
the modifications consequent on the character of 
each, through most of our languages : Old German 
chuo, modern German kiih, English cow. The Slavic 
branch has preserved it, like a great many others, in 
the form most resembling the original. Thus, Old 
Slavic has govyado, a herd ; modern Servian gove- 
dar, a cow-herd ; Russian, govyadina, — beef, the 
flesh of cows and oxen ; then gospodin, master ; 
gospbd (i), the Lord ; gospodar, the title given to 
South Slavic rulers ; all meaning originally " master 
of cows," and corresponding to the Old Sanskrit 
gopa, which first means a herdsman, and later a 
chieftain, a king.' By the same evolution of com- 
pound words from a simple radical, following on the 
evolution of various more or less subtle shades of 
meaning from the plain meaning of the original 
radical, the Sanskrit word gotra, literally " the en- 
closure which protects a herd from thieves and 
keeps it from straying," gradually comes to desig- 
nate a family, then a tribe, i. e., the people who live 
behind the same walls. 

i6. Let us linger awhile on a few of the names 
expressing the closest of domestic ties, for they will 
give us a precious insight into the Aryas' moral life, 
and help us realize what we cannot sufficiently im- 
press on our minds — that, contrary to all first (a 

' The association of ideas between " a herdsman " — a leader, ruler 
of cattle, — and " a king," a leader, ruler of men, is obvious and 
close ; see the Homeric poems, where the kings, especially the more 
wealthy and powerful, are regularly titled " shepherds," or "pastors 
of men." 



THE ARYAS. 65 

priori) impressions and plausible prejudice born of 
faulty training, in adjusting our historical glasses to 
an unhistorical, — otherwise prehistorical, i. e., un- 
monumental, undocumented — antiquity, the race we 
have to deal with was far from being a primitive — 
or, better, primary — block of humanity, unshaped, 
save to the lowest uses of material service to the one 
instinct of preserving life, with none as yet of the re- 
fining, ennobling stirrings of the spirit which come 
from experience, length of days, and leisure from 
bodily toil, — leisure to look and listen, to think, re- 
member, feel. Rough-hewn they surely were, but they 
were the finest material ever provided for chisel to 
work upon, and the work had been going on for more 
years — nay, centuries, than we at first feel at all 
willing to concede. Whenever we address our 
thoughts to the human race of a few thousand years 
back, we pucker our lips into a superciliously con- 
descending smile, and admire how many fine things 
our race could do and say when it was so very young 
and, naturally, ignorant. We should know better by 
this time ; for has not Chaldea — to take but one 
branch — taught us that as far as six or seven thou- 
sand years ago great civilizations had not only 
dawned or begun to bloom, but some had reached 
and even passed their maturity and were declining 
into that inevitable doom of decay into which others 
were to follow them and some, to a certainty, had 
preceded them. A very little calculation of probabili- 
ties will show us that mankind, at the very earliest 
point at which our eager grasp can secure the first 
slight hold of it, was not young, and when it had 
5 



66 VEDIC INDIA. 

reached, say, the cave-dweUing stage, had probably 
existed, in the dignity of speaking, fire-using Man, 
more centuries than separate it from ourselves. To 
stand out at all where the long slim ray from the 
prying bull's-eye of modern research, historic or pre- 
historic, can, however feebly, reach it, the race — or 
a race — must have emerged out of the colorless past 
of tentative groping, into a stage of positive achieve- 
ment of some kind — for without that, without some- 
thing to hold to, our most pressing questionings 
must have been eluded and have been met by 
nought but the silence of the grave. 

17. Let us then try to open the intellectual treas- 
ure-house of our earliest forebears with the golden 
keys they left for our use : their words. We may 
not yet enquire what they did with them ; that they 
had them is their crowning glory and our gain, even 
greater than the wonders of literature in which 
they culminated. For, in the words of one of the 
greatest masters of words, their histories and their 
uses,' " our poets make poems out of words, but 
every word, if carefully examined, will turn out to be 
itself a poem, a record of a deed done or of a thought 
thought by those to whom we owe the whole of our 
intellectual inheritance. . . ." Take, for instance, 
the word PITAR — father, the meaning of which is 
threefold — " feeder," " protector," " ruler " : does 
not the underlying connection between these at the 
first glance different conceptions already warrant, by 
the subtlety and depth of observation which they 

' Max Miiller, Biographies of Words, Introduction. 



THE ARYAS. ^7 

betray, the same writer's enthusiastic assertion ' : 
"Wherever we analyze language in a scholarHke 
spirit ... we shall find in it the key to some 
of the deepest secrets of the human mind. . . ." 
And does it not speak for an already highly de- 
veloped moral feeling that the root PA, from which 
is formed pitar, the most generally used word for 
" father," does not mean " to give birth " but to pro- 
tect, to support, showing how entirely the Aryan 
father realized and accepted the idea of duty and re- 
sponsibility towards those who belonged to him by the 
most sacred of human ties. Each duty gives corre- 
sponding rights, just as each right imposes a duty, 
that the eternal fitness and balance of things may 
be maintained, that universal duahsm, moral and 
physical, which is the very root and soul of the 
world.'' And thus it is that it has been admitted 
from all time as self-evident that he who fulfils the 
duty of supporting and protecting a family, has the 
undisputed right of governing it, of imposing his will 
as the law of those who depend on his toil and affec- 
tion for their sustenance, comfort, and safety. Hence 
pati, "■ master." This is, in few words, a complete 
definition of the word " patriarch," in which the 
Greeks, by a trick of language familiar to them, and, 
among the moderns, to the Germans, have deftly 
embodied the two indivisible conceptions : " father 
and ruler." ^ 

> Ibid. 

^ See Story of Assyria, p. lo6. 

2 The word " Patriarch" occurs for the first time in the Septua- 
gint, consequently came into use at a period much later than the 



68 VEDIC INDIA. 

This word "pitar" we can easily pursue through 
most Aryan languages, ancient and modern, although, 
as is the manner of words in their wanderings, it now 
takes on a letter, now drops one, now alters a vowel 
or even some of its consonants, until it becomes 
barely recognizable. to the trained eye and ear of the 
philologist. Thus Sanskrit /zV«r (Avestan/zV^r also), 
can hardly fail to be at once identified in pater (Greek 
and Latin), can easily be known in vater and father, 
the form derived by the two northern sister languages 
from the old To.vXomzfadar ; the relationship is not 
quite as obvious \w padre (Spanish and Italian), and 
especially in the Yrenchpere ; indeed, the three south- 
ern Latin sister-tongues may be said to have adopted 
decided corruptions of the original word ; and when 
we come to Celtic atJiir, athar (Gaelic, Welsh, Irish, 
Armorican), nothing short of scientific training will 
suffice to establish the identity. 

i8. The word for " mother " is even more gener- 
ally in use in the various Aryan languages, and has 
undergone fewer alterations. The Sanskrit mdtdr, 
unchanged in Avestan indtar, except in accent, 
scarcely deviates in the Greek meter dind Latin mater, 
which abides in the Slavic mater, only slightly short- 
golden age of Greek speech. Its immediate derivation — or rather 
composition — is iiom. patrid or pdtra, " a clan, a tribe," and arkhed^ 
" to rule, "giving the meaning, " ruler ofaclan or tribe." This, how- 
ever, in no wise impairs the remoter, original association of ideas 
between path', " father," &n6.pat7-id, " tribe " ; in fact, it still more 
clearly establishes the twofold — domestic and political— character of 
the word patrid, " clan," — the family grown into the tribe, and the 
father of the one into the ruler of the other. Another enlargement — 
and the tribe has become a people, the patriarch a king. 



THE ARYAS. 69 

ened by modern Russian into matt, very recogniza- 
ble for once in the Celtic mat hi, even more than in 
the German mutter, and English mother, from Old 
Teutonic miiotar ; but corrupted in the Spanish and 
Italian madre, and the French mere, after exactly the 
same fashion as the word for " father," — evid'ently 
with conscious intention to establish a symmetry 
akin to alliteration — a rhyme — a trick of language by 
which it pleased a slightly barbaric ear and taste to 
couple together kindred objects or ideas. The root 
of this multiform word is MA, " to make," and also 
"to measure." A combination particularly sugges- 
tive, since the mother, she who " has given birth," is 
also she who " measures," " portions out " the pro- 
visions, the food, and the other necessaries of life to 
the various members of the household. From the 
same root we have mas, the moon, the measurer of 
time, so that the same word means " moon " and 
" month," as it still does in its Slavic form, " mesiats^ 
19. The other words expressing near relationship 
are no less generally preserved in the several Aryan 
languages. To begin with : Sanskrit bhrdtar — svdsar; 
Avestan, brdtar — hvaiihar ; Greek, f rater; (only the 
word, at the stage of which it comes under our ken, 
had become diverted from its original meaning and 
was used in a political or social sense, to designate a 
member of one of the tribes or brotherhoods — fratri- 
as — into which citizens were divided. For the family 
relationship of both brother and sister the Greeks 
adopted an entirely different word). Latin, frater 
— soror ; Old Teutonic, brothar — svistar ; modern 
German, briider — schzvester ; English, brother — 



70 VEDIC INDIA. 

sister ; lidWdin, frate^ fratello—siiora, sorella. (Frate 
and suora are used exclusively to designate religious 
brotherhood and sisterhood, " monk " " nun." 
Frate in this respect answers to the English /rz^ir. J 
Slavic and Russian, brat — sestra ; Celtic, brdtJdr — 
siiir ; French, frere — sceur. Take further Sanskrit, 
duhitar ; Avestan, dughdhar ; Greek, thugater ; Gerr 
man, tocJiter ; RngUsh, da7(g/iter ; Irish, dear ; Slavic, 
dushter (the pronunciation cannot be understood 
from the written word, but must be heard and imi- 
tated) ; Russian, dotcher, dotch ; Latin and her chief 
daughter languages, Italian, Spanish, and French, 
have adopted another designation, filia — figlia — hija 
—fille. 

20. The secondary family ties — those by marriage 
— are no less nicely determined — which in itself 
speaks highly for an advanced state of social order, 
— and the words denoting them also turn up in most 
Aryan languages, some in many, others in but a few. 
One example must satisfy us: Sanskrit devdr, 
"brother-in-law," is almost unchanged in the Rus- 
sian de'ver and Lithunian deveris, and very recogniz- 
able in the Greek daer and even the Latin levir. 

21. We will conclude with a word embodying 
bereavement as universal as the family relations, and 
therefore reserved even more faithfully than many 
others through most languages of Aryan stock : 
vidhavd, " widow " ; German, wittzve ; Russian, 
vdova ; Latin, vidua ; Italian, vedova, corrupted by 
Spanish into viiida and by French into veuve. A 
word of mighty import, especially to later and modern 
India, as it means " husbandless," and so would, all 



THE ArYAS. 71 

alone, suffice to prove that in enforcing the horrible 
practice of widow-burning on the ground of sacred 
tradition, the Brahmans have been guilty of heinous 
misrepresentation ; for, if the custom had, as they 
assert, existed from the beginning of time, there would 
have been no vidhavds, no " husbandless women." 
Now they not only existed, but, as we shall see later 
on, are repeatedly mentioned, and once in the reli- 
gious service attending the burial (or, later, the burn- 
ing) of the dead, explicitly addressed, as returning 
from the grave or the pyre to stay among the living. 
All this in the book which the Brahmans regard as 
the holiest in all their sacred literature. Further- 
more, in their law-books, also invested with sacred- 
ness, widows are provided and legislated for at great 
length. So that the Brahmans stand convicted of 
deliberately falsifying, at least in this one instance, 
their own most sacred and, as they believe and 
assert, revealed texts. And thus the English authori- 
ties, merely through ignorance of the natives' literary 
language and their classical literature, were placed in 
the atrocious necessity of tolerating this abomination 
or breaking that portion of their agreement with the 
Hindus by which they engaged not .to interfere with 
any of their religious observances. Now that the 
texts themselves and their correct interpretation 
have been given to the world at large by the life- 
long labors of our great Sanskritists, the Govern- 
ment's hands are free to forbid and prevent, by armed 
force if necessary, these unnatural sacrifices. The 
abolition of the time-honored horrors of the widow- 
burning or suttee (more correctly written sati), yields 



72 VEDIC INDIA. 

US one more convincing proof of what tremendous 
practical issues may be waiting on the mere study of 
ivords, patiently, peacefully carried on by scholars in 
their quiet studies and libraries, so remote in space 
and spirit from the battle-places of the workaday 
world. 

22. It would be easy to swell the list of such pic- 
turesque and tell-tale words. These few instances, 
however, must suffice— only adding the remark that 
the absence of certain words can be at times as 
eloquently significant by the presumptive negative 
evidence it supplies. We called the Aryas' primeval 
home an " inland home," and later stated that 
" they had never beheld the sea nor the ocean." 
This is suggested by the fact that no name for " sea " 
is found in their earliest known language. That 
name is of later growth and different in the various 
branches of the Aryan speech, this very difference 
showing most curiously how one tribe was affected 
by one aspect of the new element, and another by a 
totally different, if not opposite one. Latin and 
Greek call the sea " a highroad " pontos, pontiis — 
from the same root as pons, pontis, " a bridge," and 
the Slavic pont(i), Russian pnt(e), " a road." But 
the Slav does not apply this name to the sea ; that 
he calls inorie (Latin mar, Italian and Spanish mare, 
French nier, German meer, hence English mere, " a 
lake," Celtic miiir), from a Sanskrit root meaning 
" destruction." A difference well accounted for, 
when we consider that the only seas the Slavs and 
Teutons were acquainted with were the Black Sea, 
the Baltic, and the German Ocean, all rough and 



THE ARYAS. 73 

treacherous, all renowned for their fierce tempests, 
which must have been destructive indeed to small 
and imperfect craft, — while the fortunate dweller on 
the genial Mediterranean shores well could look at 
the sea, not as a barrier, but as a highroad, more use- 
ful for trade and travel than any other road. 

23. Now as regards intellectual achievements and 
abstract speculation, we must not be too prompt to 
depreciate the efforts of our fathers on this ground 
on the plea that there is no common word for 
" thousand " in our languages, — or, more correctly in 
the parent languages of ours — Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, 
Old Teutonic having each fabricated a word of its 
own, which their respective offspring dutifully 
adopted with the usual tribal alterations. As to 
our Aryan forebears, we cannot escape the inference 
from this fact that they could count only up to a 
hundred, the numerals so far coinciding in all Aryan 
languages with almost comical regularity. This, 
however, is no proof as yet that they had no con- 
ception of thousands, or never saw things assem- 
bled in so large a number — men, cattle, etc. They 
may have known of thousands as so many " tens of 
hundreds," and counted as we ourselves still do up 
to a certain point: twelve hundred, eighteen hun- 
dred, and even twenty hundred, twenty-five hun- 
dred,, and so on. Furthermore, the very fact of 
having invented a numeral system at all — and that 
a decimal one ! — is an achievement which presup- 
poses a longer growth and evolution both of the 
mind and language than all the wonders of abstract 
speculation which followed, and were a necessary 



74 VEDIC INDIA. 

deduction from it, astronomical calculations in- 
cluded. For every one who has learned and taught 
knows what a weary long time the beginnings of any 
science or art take to master, and that, once the first 
principles are really and firmly grasped, the rest 
comes with a wonderful and ever-increasing rapidity, 
with a rush, as it were, partly owing to the training 
which the mind has undergone in the effort to step 
from " not thinking " to " thinking," and partly be- 
cause these same "first principles" really contain 
the whole art or science, which is only evolved from 
them, as the variations from the theme, as the play 
from the plot, or the plant from the seed. 

24. One word to conclude this, on the whole, in- 
troductory chapter. We have come to speak quite 
familiarly of "the Aryas' primeval home," of their 
separations and migrations, as though we knew all 
about these subjects. We are, in a sense, justified 
in so speaking and imagining, on the testimony 
afforded by the formation and evolution of lan- 
guages, of which we can, to a great extent, pursue 
the track over and across the vast continent which, 
though geographically one, has been artificially 
divided, in conformity with political conditions and 
school conveniences more than with natural charac- 
teristics, into two separate parts of the world : Asia 
and Europe. The division is entirely arbitrary, for 
there is no boundary line south of the Ural chain, 
and that chain itself, important as it is, from its posi- 
tion and the treasures it holds, is anything but sepa- 
rating or forbidding. Of very moderate altitude, 
with no towering summits or deep-cut gorge-passes. 



THE ARYAS. 75 

its several broad, flat-topped ridges slope down im- 
perceptibly on the European side, and are by no 
means beetling or impassable on the Asiatic side 
either. This barrier, such as it is, stops short far 
north of the Caspian Sea, leaving a wide gap of flat 
steppeland invitingly open to roaming hordes with 
their cattle and luggage-wagons, with only the mild 
Ural River or Yaik to keep up the geographical fic- 
tion of a boundary. Through this gap wave after 
wave of migration and invasion has rolled within the 
range of historical knowledge, to break into nations 
whose original kinship is demonstrated by theirv lan- 
guages. The induction is obvious that many more 
such waves than we can at all be aware of must have 
rolled back and forward in times wholly out of the 
reach of our most searching methods. The diverging 
directions of such migrations — irregularly timed, of 
course — as we know of in Asia, and only a few of 
which can have taken the way of the Uralo-Caspian 
Gap : to northwest, to west, to southwest, persua- 
sively point to a centre which, at some incalculably 
remote period, must have been the starting-point of 
these departing Aryan hives. Until within the last 
few years it was the almost universally accepted the- 
ory that this centre, — which the lines of march of the 
several nations, as well as their confronted mythical 
and cosmogonical traditions, pretty consistently 
locate somewhere in Central Asia, towards the high 
but fertile tableland of the Pamir region, — was also 
the original cradle-home of the primeval Aryas. 
That question, owing to new elements received into 
the materials and methods of prehistoric research. 



'j6 VEDIC INDIA. 

has been lately reopened, and treated, with varying 
results, by many able and erudite scholars. But, 
although each of them, of course, honestly and tri- 
umphantly believes that he has arrived at the only 
rational and conclusive solution, it is, as yet, impos- 
sible to say when and in what way the question will 
be finally and unanswerably settled — if ever and at 
all. Fortunately, it is not of the slightest practical 
importance for general students ; in other words, for 
any but specialists in ethnology, craniology, etc., and 
least of all for the subject-matter of this volume. 
We do not need to pry into the darkness of an in- 
calculable past beyond the centre of departure just 
mentioned, which is the first landmark of Aryan 
antiquity touched with a golden ray of the historical 
dawn. It is suf^cient to know that that centre, no 
matter whence the primeval Aryas of all — the Proto- 
Aryas — may have come, has been a station on which 
a large portion of the race must have been sojourners 
for many, many centuries, — that portion of it, at all 
events, of which the two principal limbs, the leading 
sister nations of the Aryan East, Eranians and 
Hindus, divided almost within our ken, for reasons 
easy to conjecture, if not to establish with actual 
certainty, and some of which have been alluded to 
in a former volume. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 

I. On the 31st of December, of the year 1600 A.D., 
Queen Ehzabeth signed a charter incorporating into 
one soHd body the hitherto disconnected and inde- 
pendent Enghsh merchants who pHed the export 
and import trade between England and India, — or 
the East Indies, as the Indian Continent began to be 
called, to distinguish it from the islands discovered 
a hundred years before by Christopher Columbus 
and known ever since as " the West Indies," thus 
perpetuating that great man's geographical mistake. 
In virtue of this charter, 125 shareholders, with a 
joint stock of ^70,000, entitled themselves " The 
Governor and Company of Merchants of Lon- 
don Trading to the East Indies," both charter and 
privileges being granted for a limited time, to be 
renewed on application at stated intervals. Such 
were the modest beginnings of that famous " East 
India Company," which was to ofTer the world the 
unprecedented spectacle of a private association 
ruling, with sovereign power and rights, a land of ten 
times the population of their mother country, sub- 

77 



yB VEDIC INDIA. 

jects in one hemisphere, kings in the other, treating 
with royalties on an equal footing, levying armies, 
waging war and making peace, signing treaties, and 
appointing a civil government. 

2. Not that the English Company was alone or 
even first in the field or had things its own way in 
India from the beginning. On the contrary, the 
object of its creation was to counteract the influence 
of the rival company of Portuguese merchants, and 
to wrest from them some of those profits and advan- 
tages which they were monopolizing ever since Vasco 
de Gama opened the direct route to India, by doub- 
ling the Cape of Good Hope in 1498. Through the 
whole of the sixteenth century the Portuguese had 
enjoyed an undisputed supremacy in the eastern 
seas and on the Indian Continent, ingratiating them- 
selves with the numerous princes, Mohammedan and 
native Hindu, extending their possessions by grants, 
by purchase, or by actual force. There is no doubt 
that they contemplated a gradual annexation of 
province after province and the eventual sovereignty 
of the entire country. They seemed in a fair way to 
achieve what they schemed, when the English Com- 
pany came forward, enterprising and active, and 
stoutly equipped for vigorous competition, and they 
almost immediately began to lose ground before the 
new arrivals, having thoroughly alienated the people 
by their unscrupulous dealings, their unmitigated 
rapacity, and their ruthless cruelty in seeking their 
profits and enforcing, by fire and torture, the so-called 
conversion of the unfortunate population who had 
received them with unsuspecting and generous hospi- 



THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 79 

tality. Step by step the Portuguese receded before 
the EngHsh company, one source of wealth after 
another was barred to them until, in 1661, they 
voluntarily yielded up to the English Crown the last 
of their important possessions, the city and district 
of Bombay, as part of the dowry of the Portuguese 
princess Catharine of Braganza when she was be- 
trothed to Charles II. (Stuart). So ignorant were 
England's official statesmen at the time of the value 
of the gift, which they regarded as a most ungainly 
and unprofitable appendage, that they, in their turn, 
ceded it to the Company for the ridiculous consid- 
eration of an annual payment of £\o sterling ! 

3. Still, though so easily rid of Portuguese com- 
petition, the Company was far from running an 
unobstructed race for power and wealth. Their 
example speedily fired other nations to emulation. 
Within twelve years from their incorporation several 
East India Companies had sprung up: a Dutch, a 
French, and a Danish one. This last, however, as 
well as a German and even a Swedish one, which 
haltingly brought up the rear a full hundred years 
later, never were of sufficient account to molest the 
English Company or cause them any anxiety. Not 
so the two former. The Dutch, being confessedly 
the foremost maritime power all through the seven- 
teenth century, and conducting their Indian venture 
not only on enterprising, but on vigorously aggres- 
sive principles, proved most formidable neighbors 
and rivals, the more so that they did not confine 
themselves to operations on the continent, but 
swiftly secured the partial or entire possession of the 



8o VEDIC INDIA. 

• 

numerous and inexhaustibly rich islands — Ceylon, 
Sumatra, Java, and the Moluccas — which stud the 
Indian Ocean, singly and in groups, forming a sort 
of appendage to India proper as well as a peristyle 
to the island world of the Pacific Ocean. It was 
only after a struggle, sometimes a bloody one, be- 
tween the two companies, which lasted over a 
century, that the Dutch gradually retreated from 
the continent and centred all their efforts and re- 
sources on the islands which to this day obey their 
rule. The French Company was now the only real 
rival whom the English were bound to watch and 
fear, for its ambition was directed to precisely the 
same end that they pursued themselves : undivided 
supremacy in this, the treasure-land of the East, and 
as it was frequently managed by men of high ability, 
it seemed more than once on the point of actually 
compassing its object. The chief difficulty it had to 
contend with, and one which eventually stranded it, 
was the indifference of the people at home and the 
heartless callousness which refused it assistance of 
any sort at the most critical moments. It so hap- 
pened that, in the middle of the eighteenth century, 
one of the ablest French directors, DUPLEIX, was 
pitted against one of England's most remarkable 
men, Governor — later Lord — Clive. The struggle 
between these two men, in open war and in diplo- 
matic efforts to secure the favor of the most power- 
ful native princes, furnishes one of the most brilliant 
pages of history. The signal victories gained by the 
Englishmen at that time, have been set down as the 
beginning of the modern British Empire in India, 



THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 8 1 

for, the French Company once beaten from the field, 
the competition was virtually at an end, and the 
French possessions do not interfere with the British 
rule any more than the few miles of land which the 
Portuguese still own on the western shore. 

4. That this rule henceforth became firmly estab- 
lished and was more or less willingly submitted to 
by the people of India and such of the native princes 
who were still allowed, as allies or vassals of the 
Company, a semblance of independence and a lim- 
ited range of power, England owed to the men who, 
at this particularly critical period, were invested with 
supreme authority. It was desirable that the con- 
quest by force of arms should be followed up by a 
wise and mild civil administration, and it was owing 
to the Company's good fortune more than their wis- 
dom that, for once, the Indian offices in their gift 
were filled by a set of men such as seldom are 
brought together to co-operate in a common field of 
action, — emphatically the right men in the right 
places. Lord Clive's successor, the illustrious and 
highly cultured Warren Hastings, seems to have 
been the first English governor who took pains to 
understand the people he ruled. He was not an 
Orientalist, nor a scholar at all, either generally or 
specially. Had he been, he would have been far less 
well fitted either for his executive duties or for the 
part of sympathizing and impartial patronage into 
which he quite naturally fell towards those men, 
officially his subordinates, whose studies were of 
such material assistance to him in compassing his 
noble ends. As a private man, Warren Hastings 



82 VEDIC INDIA. 

was an enlightened and refined amateur ; as a states- 
man and the supreme ruler of a huge so-called bar- 
barous land, whose inhabitants had, up to him, been 
looked on as so many million beasts of drought or 
burden, or — worse for them still — living treasure- 
casks, to be tapped, and staved in, and rifled of their 
contents by all and any means, he quickly gauged 
the importance of the unexpected help that was thus 
almost providentially tendered him towards his 
great aim : learning to understand the people and 
then govern them in accordance with modern humane 
standards. 

5. But how do justice, wisely, comprehensively, to 
a people about whom one does not know the first 
thing ? whose origin, history, worship, whose beliefs, 
views, modes of thought and life, are all a blank ; 
whose manners and customs are looked down on 
from the foreigner's standpoint, as being all wrong, 
absurd, laughable, and not for one moment to be 
considered or respected, simply because they are 
unlike his own ; whose laws . . . but their laws 
are unknown, as is their literary language — if they 
have a literature, a doubtful, or rather hitherto un- 
mooted point. So, with the best will, nothing re- 
mains to the European governor, in his helpless 
ignorance, but to judge the cases that come before 
him, to the best of his ability, according to his own 
country's laws, as unknown and strange to the 
people as theirs are to him, or, — if thrown on his 
own discretion, after standards of modern Western 
thought and manners, which fit the Oriental's mind 
and life about as well as the European garb his 



THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 83 

bodily habits and sense of beauty and fitness. 
Chance, which, in the vast field of Oriental discovery 
has, from the beginning, played so predominant a 
part, here again befriended the earnest searchers, by 
frequently putting unlooked for opportunities in 
their way, or placing within their reach precious 
finds of which they learned the value and the bear- 
ing only in using them, sometimes at first with quite 
a different object from that to which they were led 
by the threads thrust into their searching hands. 
Of how one may, in such studies, set out to look for 
one thing, and blunder on another, far richer and 
more valuable, we have an amusing instance on rec- 
ord in an experience of Sir William Jones, which 
opened to the amazed scholars of Europe the vast and 
hitherto unsuspected world of Indian fine literature. 
6. It was scarcely five years since Sir William's 
appointment to the Supreme Court of Bengal, and 
four since the foundation of the Bengal Asiatic So- 
ciety (1784), and in this short period the great Arabic 
and Persian scholar, who had brought to his com- 
paratively late vocation — the law, the same earnest- 
ness, thoroughness, and facility that had so early 
lifted him to the summit in his beloved Oriental and 
linguistic studies, had very nearly mastered the in- 
tricate and unfamiliar Sanskrit tongue. Not that it 
was of much practical use in the transaction of cur- 
rent court business, for, as is perhaps not generally 
known except to special students, Sanskrit is a dead 
language, which stands to modern Hindustanee in the 
relation of Latin to Italian ; but so nmch was known, 
that the entire body of native high-standard litera- 



84' VEDIC INDIA. 

ture, classical or special, was enshrined in that lan- 
guage, and Sir William, with his usual intrepidity, 
undertook an exhaustive study of India's national 
legislation, an intimate knowledge of which was 
indispensable to a rational and humane adminis- 
tration. As scholarly qualifications and competitive 
examinations were not dreamt of then as require- 
ments for Indian appointments, it was necessary — if 
the good work now inaugurated was not to remain 
merely the temporary achievement of an exceptional 
group of men, to be obliterated by the ignorance of 
their successors — to place that knowledge within 
every functionary's reach, by transferring it into the 
English language. This gigantic task resulted in 
Jones' famous DIGEST OF HiNDU Laws, — which, 
however, he was not permitted to complete, — and in 
the translation of the INSTITUTES OF Manu, the 
code most widely acknowledged in India. This 
work, the last of a life heaped to overflowing with 
noble labor, but shortened by the long, never relax- 
ing strain under a homicidal climate, was published 
just before his death, in 1790. It had for years been 
his pet project, and, the better to fit himself for it, 
he had devoted his few hours of comparative leisure 
to literary and linguistic studies in the seemingly 
boundless field of Sanskrit scholarship. 

7. Once, when so employed, under the guidance qf 
a competent and intelligent Brahman master. Sir 
William bethought him of a passage in a well- 
known collection of Catholic missionaries' letters 
about certain " books called Ndtac " and supposed to 
"contain a large portion of ancient history, without 



THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 8$ 

any mixture of fable." As nothing is so hard to get 
in all the huge mass of Sanskrit writing as a crumb 
of real history, he made inquiries, having a strong 
inducement, as he says himself, in his desire to learn 
anything that might in any way be connected with 
the administration of justice. But he could not make 
much of the information that was given him, except 
that those books were not histories but abounded 
with fables, and consisted of conversations, in prose 
and verse, on an infinite variety of subjects, and in 
various dialects of India, " from which he naturally 
concluded that they were some sort of dialogues on 
moral and literary topics," until a more than usually 
observant and intelligent Brahman, he goes on to re- 
late, " removed all his doubts and gave him no less 
delight than surprise by telling him that the English 
had compositions of the same sort, which were pub- 
licly represented at Calcutta and bore the name, as he 
had been informed, of plays. . . ." Naturally, Sir 
William asked which was the most popular of these 
Natakas or dramas, and was answered "THE RiNG 
OF Shakuntala." Whereupon, he proceeds to tell, 

" I soon procured a correct copy, and, assisted by my teacher, 
began with translating it verbally into Latin, which bears so great a 
resemblance to Sanskrit that it is more convenient than any modern 
language for a scrupulous interlineary version. I then turned it word 
for word into English, and afterwards, without adding or suppressing 
any material sentence, disengaged it from the stiffness of a foreign 
idiom, and prepared the faithful translation of the Indian drama, 
which I now present to the public." 

8. Thus, out of something very like a grammar 
exercise, came a revelation of beauty and high art, 
the unpretending form of which enhanced its effect 



86 VEDIC INDIA. 

on the literary and scholarly world of the West. 
" Shakuntala " has been translated into nearly all 
European languages, sometimes in exquisite verse — 
but for years was known only from the great lawyer's 
almost interlinear prose rendering, and in this sim- 
ple garb aroused unbounded enthusiasm and aston- 
ishment. Needless to say what a sudden lift was 
given in public opinion to the hitherto despised 
" natives " of a land valued merely for its wealth, by 
the discovery that, instead of the rude attempts at 
poetical expression with which the most liberal were 
willing to credit them, they possessed a fine litera- 
ture as abundant, if not as varied, as any in the West 
— older, too, than any, not excepting the so-called 
classical ones, glittering with all the finish and the 
brilliancy of their country's owYi rainbow-hued 
thousand-faceted gems. For, with Shakuntala, the 
Hindu theatre was discovered, a mine as rich in 
legend and mythic lore as the Greek and Elizabethan 
dramas. With the latter, indeed, as piece after piece 
came to light, the Hindu drama was found to have 
astonishing af^nities, not only in the general manner 
of treating the subject and working the plot, in the 
natural, unconstrained development of the characters 
and sequence of events, but down to details of form. 
" They are all in verse," says Sir William Jones, 
who, being once put on the right track, did not, we 
may be sure, rest content with one specimen, " w^here 
the dialogue is elevated, and in prose where it is 
familiar: the men of rank and learning are repre- 
sented as speaking pure Sanskrit, and the women 
Prakrit, which is little more than the language of the 



THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 8/ 

Brahmans melted down by a careful articulation to 
the softness of Italian ; while the low persons of the 
drama speak the vulgar dialects of the several prov- 
inces which they are supposed to inhabit." Does 
not this description apply word for word to the 
Shakespearian drama? Not even prologues and 
epilogues are wanting — addresses to the audience by 
the manager, a chief actor, or an allegorical character, 
— with explanations of matters pertaining to the 
play, or the usual petitions for an indulgent hearing 
and kind forbearance with shortcomings, while the 
remarks or expressions of feeling thrown in by the 
secondary characters — friends, spectators, and the 
like — strongly remind us of the Greek chorus.' 

' Not that any intrinsic connection between the two dramas can be 
supposed or admitted. Some few scholars, indeed, advance the 
hypothesis that the Hindu drama may have been influenced by its 
great Greek predecessor. They find a suggestion to that effect in 
the circumstance that Greek female slaves are mentioned in one 
play, — that the Hindu play, like the Greek tragedy, took for its 
heroes royal or semi-divine personages, and its subjects from the cycle 
of national myth and heroic romance. That the drama flourished in 
the Western provinces and along the Western coastland, while it had 
no hold at all on the Eastern portion of India, seems to them to 
confirm their hypothesis. But serious researches have resulted in 
the rejection of any direct action or intrinsic affinity. A study of the 
Hindu drama does not enter into the scope of this volume, except 
incidentally as one of the sources of our knowledge of the country 
and people. But it is a fascinating subject, on which full informa- 
tion can be obtained in the most attractive form from the following 
works : The Hindu Theatre of W. H. Wilson, with a most valu-.- 
able introduction ; the chapter on the same subject in Schroeder's 
popular but scholarly and reliable lectures, Indiens Literattir und 
Cultur ; in Etudes de Litte'rature Sanscrite by Philibert Souppe ; also 
Le Thddtre Indien (Paris, 1890), by Sylvain Levy. 



88 VEDIC INDIA. 

9. The Hindu drama, like the Elizabethan, bursts 
on us in full flush of perfection, and its beginnings, 
the unskilled stammerings of the voice which charms 
us with its plenitude of harmony, are lost to us. This 
is only natural, in an age and land where there was 
no printing-press, to create an artificial immortality 
and embalm for the bewilderment of future genera- 
tions the still-born efforts of an infant muse: the 
wholesome working of that lately discovered law 
known as "survival of the fittest," applies to the 
intellectual as well as to the physical world. 
" Shakuntala " belongs to the golden age of the 
drama, that of a king of the name of Vikramaditya, 
who reigned in the fifth century, A.D,, at UjJAIN, one 
of the most ancient and sacred cities of India, in the 
present native vassal state of Malwa, and at whose 
court the author, Kalidasa, who has been surnamed 
" the Hindu Shakespeare," and who distinguished 
himself in other branches of poetry besides the 
drama, appears to have lived. It seems not a little 
wonderful that, in the remote and unknown East, 
a contemporary of Hengist and Horsa should indite 
works which could inspire such a critic as Goethe 
with lines like his famous epigram on Kalidasa's 
favorite play : 

Wouldst thou the young year's blossoms and the fruits of its decline, 
And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed, — 

Wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine? 
I name thee, O Shakuntala, and all at once is said. 

10. Not less great than the admiration for the play 
as a work of art was the astonishment at the plot, 
when it was perceived that it is founded on one 



THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 89 

of the most universally familiar stories of European 
folk-lore : that of the lover who, stricken by a wicked 
spell, forgets his love — whether sweetheart or bride 
— and recovers his memory of her only on seeing the 
golden ring he gave her, and which is brought back 
to him under a variety of romantic circumstances — 
sometimes by the maiden's or wife's own contrivance, 
as when she arrives to find him on the point of wed- 
ding another and manages to have the ring dropped 
into the goblet of wine presented him at the feast — 
sometimes by sheer accident. The latter is the solu- 
tion adopted by Kalidasa, and — doubly wonderful — 
the accident is the same which makes the subject of 
one of the best known and most popular stories 
bequeathed us by Greek antiquity. The ring is dis- 
covered in the stomach of an exceptionally fine fish 
caught in a stream into which Shakuntala had acci- 
dentally dropped it, and the fisherman, accused of 
stealing it, is brought into the presence of the king 
for judgment ; the ring is produced, and, the moment 
it catches the monarch's eye, he awakes as from 
a trance and asks for his wife. Now, who does not 
remember the same ring-and-fish incident as told by 
Herodotus in his story of Polykrates, the too fortu- 
nate tyrant of Samos, who casts into the sea his 
most costly and highly prized ring, to propitiate the 
Deity by a voluntary sacrifice, and sees it reappear 
the same night at his table, cut out of the body of a 
huge fish presented to him by the fisherman as too 
fine for any but the royal board ? There is no love 
in the case, and the Greek uses the incident to point 
a moral of his own, but the incident itself is there, in 
both, identical. 



90 VEDIC INDIA. 

II. Another play by the same poet, ViKRAMA AND 
Urvasi, or The Hero and the Nymph, develops 
a mythical incident made as familiar to us by a pop- 
ular story from a similar source. A celestial nymph 
loves and marries an earthly king, warning him, how- 
ever, that she can abide with him only so long as he 
will be careful she shall not behold him disrobed. 
For many years they enjoy unalloyed happiness, 
when her former companions, the nymphs and sprites, 
who had sorely missed her, resolved to bring her back 
by stratagem and contrived, by sending an oppor- 
tune flash of lightning in the night, that the condi- 
tion of her existence on earth should be violated. In 
that flash she saw her lord divested of his robes, — 
and, with a wail, forthwith vanished. King Vikrama 
mourned for her and sought her all over the world, 
until, after long, sorrowful wanderings, he found her 
and they were miraculously reunited. Even this brief 
epitome will at once have suggested to the lover of 
storydom the adventures of Eros AND PSYCHE as 
told by that bright story-teller, the precursor of 
Boccaccio and Chaucer, Greek Apuleius, in spite of 
a few circumstances being altered or even inverted. 
In the Greek legend it is the lover who is divine and 
the woman is a mortal, forbidden from beholding his 
face or form not only disrobed, but in any way what- 
ever. And he is not shown to her by any external 
agency, but she deliberately seeks him with a lighted 
lamp at the dead of night. Yet the external agency 
is supplied by the promptings of her sisters, who 
wish, out of envy or affection, to get her back, and 
urge her to the disobedience which is her undoing. 



TttE SOURCES OP OUR KNOWLEDGE. 9 1 

As natural, it is she who wanders and seeks for the 
lost one, to whom she is reunited in the end. And 
this story too, like that of Shakuntala, can be matched 
by one of a vastly different age and clime, the north- 
ern mediaeval legend of LOHENGRIN, THE Knight 
OP' THE Swan. He too is a more than human being 
and the maiden he weds is warned that she must ask 
him no questions as to his past — nor so much as to 
inquire who he is — for though he must satisfy her, 
that moment he leaves her. Like Psyche, she listens 
to evil promptings, breaks the command, and pays 
the penalty. Li all these stories, vastly differing in 
details, substance and spirit are the same. 

12. That such resemblances could not come under 
the head of casual coincidence was clear to the most 
superficial of the "general reader" class, and a mo- 
mentary curiosity was pretty universally aroused as 
to what might be their cause and meaning. But the 
scholarly world — philologists, Orientalists, mytholo- 
gists — was far more deeply stirred. This was con- 
firmation of much knowledge that had been coming 
in thick and fast for some years, — ever since the 
English residents in India had begun to study San- 
skrit, and made and promptly published the startling 
discovery of that ancient tongue's close kinship 
with all the languages, old and modern, of Europe. 
Confirmation, too, that completed observations al- 
ready made in the parallel field of mythology, and 
embodied by Sir William Jones in a celebrated 
paper on the affinity — if not identity — of the divini- 
ties of the Brahmanic religion with the gods and 
goddesses of the classic world ; an identity which 



92 VEDIC INDIA. 

often extended to minute details, as in the case of 
KAma, the child-god of Love, bearer of a bow and 
arrows of flowers, whose very name, meaning DE- 
SIRE, seems merely translated into the Greek ErOS, 
and the Latin CUPID. Owing to the same few 
scholars' indefatigable zeal, which was soon to 
arouse in Europe the emulation of such men as 
Friedrich Wilhelm von Schlegel and WlL- 
HELM VON Humboldt, the field was widening 
almost hourly, and the great Hindu epics, the 
Ramayana and the MahabhArata, were becom- 
ing known, — in fragments at first, as the students 
went on on the simple plan of translating the selec- 
tions given them to read by their native teachers, 
mostly Pundits of renown. But these fragments 
were like those scattered erratic granite blocks which 
show what the primeval mountains of the earth were 
made of. And it was evident that these epics 
were treasuries of national heroic legends, myths, 
and stories which all went to prove the same thing, 
besides being an absolutely inexhaustible mine of 
information not only on the customs and manners, 
but also, and even more, on the spiritual life of the 
Hindu people — the ways of their thinking in reli- 
gion, philosophy, and ethics. 

13. Poetry in India, like the country itself and 
everything in it — its scenery, its vegetation, all its 
nature — is on an enlarged scale with regard not only 
to copiousness of fancy and exuberance of imagery 
and diction, but to the actual size of its productions, 
the bulk of words. The dramas, long indeed, do 
not so far exceed the proportions familiar to our 



THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 93 

training. But what shall we say of the two epics, 
especially the Mahabharata (more than twice the 
length of the Ramayana), with its 110,000 shlokas or 
couplets of two lines, each more than double the 
length of an ordinary English blank verse line! 
Only to compute such a mass of words is a prob- 
lem in arithmetic, and the result must be appalling 
to a student of even more than average working 
powers. But then these two gigantic repositories 
really constitute between them a national encyclo- 
pedia, not only of heroic and mythic legends and 
poetical creations, but in at least equal measure of 
the nation's philosophy, its religion, its political and 
social theories, and many more grave and profound 
matters which, in other countries, endowed with a 
clearer perception of proportions and the fitness of 
things, are not admitted into the scheme of what 
should be merely works of art, for purposes of 
entertainment of an elevating and ennobling nature. 
Of these Hindu poems, overflowing with wealth of 
every kind, but nondescript of form and absolutely 
promiscuous of contents, we can say that they take 
us through portals of tropical flowers and labyrinthine 
groves of ambrosial foliage and enticing dalliance, 
into a sterner world on a higher plane, where the 
pleasure-seeking mood changes to contemplative and 
vague questioning, while further still loom the 
shades of the ascetic anchorite's forest home, and 
beckon the snow-bound peaks of disembodied 
thought, in whose rarefied atmosphere nothing can 
breathe save God-centred meditation and absolute 
renunciation. 



94 VEDIC INDIA. 

14. The way is long, and our knowledge of each 
stage indicated in the ItihAsas (legendary and 
semi-historical, heroic poems) is supplemented by a 
mass of literature, the profoundest and abstrusest the 
world has known, and which to classify alone is a 
serious work both of memory and discernment, so 
that mere catalogues of manuscripts — their titles 
and a brief indication of their subject-matter — are 
among the most valuable contributions to Orientalist 
libraries. What we would call the scientific depart- 
ment is very respectably represented by a number 
of works on arithmetic, mathematics, astronomy, 
and grammar, this latter having been carried by the 
Hindu scholars to a perfection of subtility and pre- 
cision never equalled by those of any other nation, 
ancient or modern. Then come jurisprudence and 
social science, expounded in elaborate works which 
have for their text books, ist, the DliARMA-SUTRAS 
and the Dharma-Shastras, a number of codes of 
various antiquity and authority, the best known of 
which is the Manava Dharma-ShAstra, or " Insti- 
tute of Manu " (already mentioned), and, 2d, the 
Grihya-Sutras, collections of practical rules for the 
conduct of life, domestic and religious. These man- 
uals, which are meant for the use of only the 
priestly class, the Brahmans, are far older than the 
Shastras, to which they have in a measure served 
as foundation. Then there are the six systems of 
philosophy and metaphysics, which cover pretty well 
the ground explored and battled over by most 
schools of the West, from antiquity down to our own 
day : deism, pantheism, idealism, materialism, skep- 



THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 95 

ticism, and even cynicism. Lastly, the PuRANAS, 
literally " Old Stories," or, rather, " Tales of Eld," 
which might be, in a general way, likened to the 
Itihasas, with this very distinctive difference, that 
— while these and the smaller and sometimes quite 
short epic poems called Kavyas give us the ex- 
ploits and adventures of human and semi-divine 
but still mortal heroes, — the Puranas treat only of 
gods and their doings, of the creation and other kin- 
dred subjects, sacred if not wholly religious. In 
fact, their cycle is methodically classed under the 
following five heads: ist, the creation of the world, 
or Cosmogony ; 2d, its successive dissolutions and 
renovations ; 3d, the genealogy, i. e., the origin and 
parentage of the gods and patriarchs, or Theogony ; 
4th, the reigns of the great patriarchs and ages of 
the world ; 5th, the history of the ancient, heaven- 
born dynasties of kings. The bulk total of these 
collected works, which contain almost the whole dis- 
tinctively theological literature of the later develop- 
ment of the Brahmanic religion, or PIlNDUISM, is 
enormous. There are eighteen so-called " great 
Puranas," making together 400,000 shlokas, the long- 
est heading the list with 81,000, and the shortest 
closing it with 10,000. Of these, some are already 
translated into various European languages, wholly 
or in portions ; and the contents of all are well 
known, and, on the whole, thoroughly studied. 
They vary in importance and popularity, but greatly 
surpass in both the sixteen so-called ''lesser" or 
" secondary " Puranas, the best known part of which 
is their titles, as they are not common, and lacking 



96 VEDIC INDIA. 

in interest or attractiveness, some even being written 
in prose. 

15. Needless to enumerate the minor classes of 
works which make up the balance of Sanskrit litera- 
ture : lyrical and other poems, stories in prose and 
verse — those of real interest to us being the so- 
called " beast-stories," the source and models of all 
the fable-literature of the Aryan world, — works on 
medicine, various crafts, fine arts, etc. They are 
generally of very late and many of actually modern 
date, except the beast-stories which, if comparatively 
late in form, are, as to contents, as old as the race 
itself, for most of the animal types and a great many 
of their adventures belong undoubtedly to its pri- 
meval treasury, which accounts for their universal 
adoption by all its branches. It is the vast and 
massive classes of literature, briefly outlined in the 
preceding paragraphs, from which we derive our 
most important and comprehensive knowledge of 
India ; but they, too, are for the most part com- 
paratively late productions, embodying stages of 
culture of very different periods, times ranging 
through more than twenty centuries, and some 
quite modern. Now twenty centuries do not take 
us back to a very remote antiquity — at least it does 
not seem such to our minds, trained by the last 
half-century of historical research to grapple with 
very different chronological problems, our horizon 
having been widened and moved further and further 
back until our mental vision now easily reaches the 
end of a vista of seventy centuries. 

16. The first explorers of India's past already 



THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 97 

felt the incompleteness of their efforts in that direc- 
tion. They entered on their studies with appetites 
whetted by the few significant disclosures vouchsafed 
them by chance, and with a keen relish for further 
revelations along the same line, which was to take 
them to the glorious goal already dimly visible in 
the far distance : the primeval unity of all the so- 
called Aryan nations, in speech, in thought, in wor- 
ship. They were the more prepared for arduous 
labor that they could not, as they very well knew, 
look for assistance to the faithful auxiliaries of the 
archaeologist in other Oriental fields : the pickaxe 
and the shovel. The field of Indian research, up to 
a very late period, is absolutely bare of monuments 
— including under that name everything tangible, 
from a temple ruin to a rock inscription and to a 
fragment of statuary or pottery. All the monuments 
the Sanskritist can turn to are books, or more cor- 
rectly manuscripts, and of these the mass kept daily 
increasing till it threatened to become unmanageable. 
Yet, even while almost buried under the abundance 
of valuable material, they felt that their progress 
was slow, heavy, unsatisfactory. Still, if the polar 
beacon-light, on which they kept their gaze un- 
swervingly fixed, did not come nearer, and at times 
almost seemed to recede, it never disappeared, never 
went out. Soon they began to see the way that led 
to it straight, at first vaguely, then more and more 
clearly, at the same time that they felt an invisible 
barrier, not of their making, rise up between them 
and their soul's desire. This barrier was a purely 
moral one — a silent opposition on the part of the 



98 VE/)IC INDIA. 

English students' native teachers, Brahmans all of 
them, of high social standing and great learning ac- 
cording to the nation's standard. Up to a certain 
point their English pupils found in them willing and 
sympathetic guides and helpers. But just assure as 
they came to a passage that seemed to open a gate 
into the very fields where they longed to explore, 
their eager questioning was met with feigned ignor- 
ance, assumed indifference, or evasive rejoinders, 
generally of the purport that these were things that 
could not interest foreigners or repay their trouble, 
seeing they had no importance save for natives. 

17. So much the Englishmen quickly made out : 
that all the subjects which they soon learned were 
to be kept closed from them, either by passive resist- 
ance or devices to divert their attention, were the 
very ones it most imported to them to find out about, 
invariably bearing on matters of ancient religion or 
law. They also discovered that these subjects and 
all the literature treating of them were considered 
sacred and, as such, to be jealously guarded from 
the sacrilegious prying of unholy strangers ; further- 
more, that, the Brahmans as a class being specially 
entrusted with the guardianship of all things sacred 
and national, they did not wish their pupils, who 
were also their masters, to learn too much about 
matters the knowledge of which might enable them 
to strengthen their own power at the expense of the 
Brahmans' own, and to unravel, on occasion, the plot- 
ting and scheming of the latter, as well as expose the 
fallac3^ of many of their claims and assertions. The 
Veda was the name of the forbidden knowledge— 



THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 99 

literally, for the word means " knowledge." It was 
applied, as the English students found out, some- 
times to the sacred books of the ancient religion of 
India, and sometimes to the body of literature that 
had gathered around them in the course of time. 
Those books, four in number, were said by the 
Brahmans to be a direct verbal revelation from the 
Most High, and were soon understood by the 
scholars to be the fountain-head of India's religion 
and law both. All their efforts were henceforth 
bent in this direction, but they could accomplish 
very little, even when they contrived to get hold 
of portions of the precious texts, as they met another 
and not less disheartening obstacle in the fact that 
the language proved to be an older form of Sanskrit, 
which it was as impossible for them to master unas- 
sisted as it would be for us to understand without 
previous study the Anglo-Saxon writings of Bede or 
Alfred the Great. 

18. The second generation of Sanskrit workers 
fared better, because the more enlightened Brahman 
Pundits began to drop some of their reserve and 
forget their apprehensions before their English 
pupils' earnestness and singlemindedness. It is not 
improbable that their patriotic feelings, too, may 
have been flattered, and their hopes aroused of bet- 
ter government at the hands of men who were 
striving so hard for knowledge of the people they 
were called on to rule. How, for instance, could 
such a man as Henry Thomas COLEBROOKE fail to 
command their respect and sympathy, when they 
saw him, a youth of scarcely twenty, resist the 



lOO VEDIC INDIA. 

temptations which beset him in the midst of the 
wealthy, pleasure-loving, and dissipated English 
official society, and take refuge in his midnight 
studies unaffected by the allurements of the gam- 
bling-table ? ' Be it as it may, when Colebrooke, 
fifteen years after his arrival in India, after complet- 
ing the compilation and translation of the Digest of 
Hindu Law begun by Sir William Jones, came out 
in the same year (1797) with a study of his own — 
Essays on the Religious Ceremonies of the Hineius, — 
the work " showed very clearly that he had found 
excellent instructors, and had been initiated in the 
most sacred literature of the Brahmans," even had 
he not explicitly testified in his writings that Brah- 
mans had proved by no means averse to instruct 
strangers, and that they did not even conceal from 
him the most sacred texts of the Veda.'' 

19. Sir William Jones, in founding the Bengal 
Asiatic Society, became the initiator of systematic 
and consecutive research in the newly opened quarry. 
His friend and fellow-laborer, Charles Wilkins, lived 
to be greeted in his native land, at the close of an 
unusually long and well-filled life, with the title of 
" Father of Sanskrit Studies." And well earned was 
the recognition, since he often had sacrificed the 
tastes which drew him to purely scholarly pursuits 
in his chosen field, in order to devote himself to the 
drudgery without which the establishment of the 
Society must have remained barren of practical 

' Colebrooke's Letters. 

"^ Max Miiller, Chips from a Cerinan Workshop, vol. iv., p. 371 
(New York edition, Scribner, Armstrong, & Co., 1876). 



THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. lOI 

results. It was he who organized the first Sanskrit 
printing ofifice, with absolutely raw material in the 
shape of native printers and other workmen, who 
had to be, each individually, shown the very a-b-c of 
their craft. And not only that, but the type had to be 
designed and cast, so that Wilkins, in his own single 
person, was by turns, or all at one time, draughts- 
man, founder, compositor, type-setter, printer, and 
proof-reader. Yet these two men, great as were their 
merits, are regarded now, in the light of a century of 
marvellously successful work, rather as the precursors 
and prophets of a science of which Colebrooke is 
acknowledged the true messiah. For, if his prede- 
cessors opened, so to speak, the garden of Sanskrit 
belles-lettres, he it was who began that determined 
digging down amidst the roots and through the 
subsoil and stratified layers of words and facts which 
at length brought down the searchers to the very 
hard pan of positive knowledge. Religion, law, 
social institutions (especially that of caste), native 
sects, grammar, astronomy, arithmetic, and sciences 
generally, as known to the Hindus — in each of these 
provinces he showed the way and started the work 
mapped out for those who were to succeed him by 
some standard pieces of research, which, for skill and 
depth of treatment, have never been outdone, even 
if many of the positions he took up on the high-water 
line of the knowledge of his time, were naturally 
swamped by the advancing tide of science. 

20. No province of Oriental research is as rich as 
the Sanskrit field, both in materials and in illustrious 
workers. Their name is legion ; the mass of their 



I02 VEDIC INDIA. 

scholarly achievements, as piled on shelf upon shelf, 
in rows of more or less ponderous volumes, or scat- 
tered in loose essays and studies through numberless 
special periodicals in every European language, is 
such as to appal not only those that aspire to follow 
in their footsteps as original searchers, but even, if 
not still more, those who elect the more modest por- 
tion of popularizing their works, i. e., of making the 
world at large interested in and familiar with their 
aims, their methods, and the results attained so far, 
and who, in order to do this successfully and reliably, 
must master the greater portion of what has been 
done, keeping well up to date, as this is work that 
never pauses, and each day may bring forth a dis- 
covery or a point of view more important than the 
last. To give the names of even the most illustrious 
of this admirable host were a hopeless attempt, be- 
sides that mere names are always unprofitable. Many 
will turn up of themselves in the following pages, in 
connection with their work, and the bibliographical 
list appended to this volume, as to the preceding 
ones, will, it is hoped, in a great measure, supply the 
want of information on this subject. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE VEDAS. 



1. With the vague and sweeping approximative- 
ness with which we are wont to lump our knowledge 
or imaginings of all such things as are removed very 
far away from us in space or time, or both, we rather 
incline to think of " India " as one country, one na- 
tion. How ludicrously wide of the mark such a fancy 
is, has already been shown, and will appear repeat- 
edly as we advance. Yet it is in so far excusable, 
that to the European mind, India is identified with 
one race — the Aryan ; that her history is to us that 
of this race's vicissitudes on the Himalayan con- 
tinent, on which it has been supreme so long, mate- 
rially and spiritually ; that the history of Indian 
thought and speech is pre-eminently that of the 
Aryan mind, — until even now, when races have be- 
come so inextricably mixed that there are no longer 
any Aryan peoples, but only Aryan languages and, 
perhaps, traits of intellect and character, we turn to 
India as one of the fountain-heads of Aryan life. 

2. Not the fountain-head. For we know beyond 

103 



I04 VEDIC INDIA. 

the need of demonstration that Aryas descended 
into India after long periods both of stationary life 
and migrations, in the course of which they traversed 
the immensities of Central Asia ; we further know 
almost to a certainty that these Aryas were a dissev- 
ered branch from a far greater and more numerous 
nation, to which we have given the name of IndO- 
Eranians, and which everything — especially the 
evidence of language and religion — shows to have 
lived undivided down to a comparatively late period, 
while and after other swarms had flown, in other di- 
rections, away from that primeval Aryan mother- 
hive, which, like all beginnings, must remain forever 
wrapped in mystery, though we can partly surmise 
what its language must have been like — the root of 
our flexional culture-tongues, and its myths, — the 
primary conceptions of nature in the working of her 
divinized forces.' We also have good reason to 
suspect that diversity of feeling in religious matters, 
deepening in time to a schism, may not have been 
foreign to the separation.^ 

3. When Zarathushtra embodied this revulsion of 
feeling, which had attuned his people's minds to 
loftier teachings, in his great religious reform, and 
gave forth that profession of faith which once forever 
stamped them with the stern earnestness, the some- 
what sadly serious spirituality which was to distin- 
guish them from all ancient nations,' — the separation 



' See Story of Media, Babylon, and Persia, pp. Zl ff' 
^ lb., pp. 98-100. 
^ lb., pp. 102-104. 



I06 VEDIC INDIA. 

must have been an accomplished fact, perhaps for 
some time ah'eady. It is then that we can imagine 
the first Aryan detacliment — soon to be followed at 
intervals by others — emerging, still awe-struck and 
bewildered, with a sense upon them as of a wonder- 
ful escape, from the sinuous and beetling mountain 
passes through which they had followed at a venture 
the bounding, tumbling Indus where, with a sharp 
southward bend, the river for which a continent is 
named, digs and breaks its rocky bed out of gloom 
and wildness, into a region of sunlight and peaceful 
plains. 

4. It was the Penjab. A land of many rivers 
and broad valleys, of mountains grading down into 
hills, wooded, forest-clad, of moderate clime and 
ever-bearing soil. It had everything to invite set- 
tlers — and to keep them a long, long time, even to 
isolation. For a glance at the map will show that 
this garden in the shape of a corner or triangle, while 
fenced from the outer world on two sides by a well- 
nigh impassable barrier, is on the third side separated 
from its own continent by a wide belt of desert ; and 
its wonderful system of rivers is entirely its own ; 
their course, — with the exception of the giant, Indus, 
— begins and ends within its limits. Five bountiful 
streams descend from various points of extreme 
Western Himalaya, their courses converging, uniting 
by twos, now here, now there, until their waters 
blend into one short but wide, deep, and rapid 
river which has always borne the collective name 
Pantchanada, " The Five Rivers " — a name which 
was transferred, unaltered, to the land itself, and of 



THE VEDAS. \OJ 

which " Penjab " is the Persian form.* The Indus, 
the while, has been gathering volume and swiftness 
all by itself, without any contributions from affluents, 
of which it receives only a few inconsiderable ones 
in the upper portion of its course before it emerges 
into the open land. It advances, solitary, majestic, 
to where the Pantchanada brings it the united trib- 
ute of " The Five," and then rolls down towards the 
sea, such a mighty, often storm-tossed, mass of waters, 
that the early poets habitually described it by that 
very name, — Saunidra — which they used for the 
accumulation of atmospheric moisture in the shape 
of rain-clouds — the celestial ocean— and which was 
given later to the sea itself when the Aryas from the 
Penjab, probably by navigation down the Indus, 
reached at last the Indian Ocean. 

5. There is a name under which the land we 
know as Penjab was even more widely designated 
both in the early or Vedic, and the later, so-called 

' The five rivers can show up between them about five times as 
many names, which, to a beginner, is confusing. Their modern 
names are different from those of the Epic Brahmanic period, wliile 
the very oldest have been discovered in the Vedic literature of a re- 
moter era still. Then the Greeks, who knew this portion of India 
tolerably well, had their own names for them, with a slight assonance 
to the native ones. The list begins with the westernmost, modern 
Jhelum, the Epic and Vedic Vitasta, of which the Greeks made 
Hydaspes ; next comes Vedic AsiKNt, Greek AkesIiNOS, now 
TcHENAB ; these two unite and for a considerable distance flow on in 
one stream of double volume and rapid current, as indicated by the 
picturesque Vedic name Marudvridha, " The Wind-Swelled " ; its 
later Sanskrit name, Tchandrabhaga, hellenized into Sandro- 
phagus, it still retains. There is a pretty story of this river having 
set a term to Macedonian Alexander's Indian campaign ; its Greek 



I08 VEDIC INDIA. 

Classic periods: it is Sapta-Sindhavah, — "the 
Seven Rivers." This is the Hapta-Hendu of the 
Eranians, — the land mentioned in the famous geo- 
graphical chapter of the Avesta among the earliest 
creations of Ahura-Mazda, and in the rock-inscription 
on the tomb of Dareios I. in the list of the Persian 
Empire's tributary provinces. It is, indeed, a far 
more correctly descriptive name, as it takes due 
count of the Indus, — the SiNDH of Indian antiquity' 
— and includes a seventh river, of high and even 
sacred legendary fame, the Sarasvati, which may 
be described as the eastern boundary of this first 
Aryan dominion in India, since it skirts the edge of 
the Indian desert already mentioned. That river 
has, in the course of ages, undergone some rather 
peculiar changes. It springs from the western slopes 
of the slight watershed which divides the river- 
system of the Penjab and the Indian Ocean from 

name meaning " Devourer of Alexander," the conqueror is said to 
have accepted it as an evil omen and decided on returning. The 
modern RAvt or Iroti is easily recognized in the Epic IravatI, but 
not in the Vedic ParushnI or the Greek Hydraotes, while both 
ShuiudrI and the later Shatadr& are little altered in the Greek 
Zadadres, and leave a slightly reminiscent sound in the modern 
SuTLEDj ; just as in the name of the Viyas or Bias there is a faint 
echo of the Vedic Vipasa, transparently hellenized into HvPAsis, 
HvPANis, or, closer still, ViPAsis. Of th^ five, the Sutledj is by 
far the most considerable, in length and volume, and the most fre- 
quently mentioned — almost as the Indus' twin sister river ; "Indus 
and Sutledj " go together just as "Ganges and Djumna," the two 
leaders of the other twin system, that of the Gulf of Bengal. 

^ "Sindh" means " River." This is another instance of a coun- 
try's principal stream being styled by the inhabitants "The River" 
par excellence. 



THE VEDAS. IO9 

that of Eastern Hindustan and the Gulf of Bengal, 
and used to accomplish its travels in the customary 
manner, and end them in the Indus, as indicated on 
the map by the punctured line which designates its 
original course. But the Sarasvati does not seem 
to have had the vigor of its sister- rivers. Perhaps 
from scantness of water at the start, or from the 
spongy nature of the soil which, being dry and 
sandy, absorbed too, much of its volume — be it as it 
may, its waters gave out, and at some time it stopped 
midway and got lost in the sands of the desert. 
This must have happened already at a very early 
period, for quite ancient manuscripts mentioned the 
place as a landmark, observing that such or such a 
locality is distant so or so many days' march from 
where the Sarasvati disappears into the ground. 
What is left of it is now known, in its upper course, 
as the Sarsuti, and, lower down, it changes its 
name to Gharghar. At the present time it has no 
importance save that which it derives from old poetic 
and legendary associations and from having been 
one of the original " Seven Rivers " that graced and 
nourished the first Aryan settlements in the land — 
"the Seven Sisters," or "the Seven Mothers," as the 
ancient bards often gratefully and prettily addressed 
them in their songs. 

6. A people's life and pursuits were mapped out 
for it in such a country: agriculture and cattle- 
breeding — the cornfield and the pasture, the barn 
and the dairy, together with the few simple auxiliary 
crafts which make primitive farming self-sufficing — 
pottery, carpentering, hide-tanning, spinning, and 



112 VEDIC INDIA. 

weaving, — these were the departments which claimed 
nearly the whole attention of the Aryan settlers, the 
joint and divided labor of their men and women. 
It would have been strange if the many wide and 
deep rivers had not encouraged boat-building, even 
ship-building and navigation ; so that, while the gen- 
eral formation of the land, divided by intersecting 
mountain spurs into countless valleys, favored the 
establishment of separate and independent tribes, 
the many easy ways of communication fostered 
neighborly intercourse, and laid the beginnings of 
commerce. These almost ideal conditions for a 
nation's development, moreover, though full of the 
promise of great prosperity, did not in the least dis- 
pose it to indolence or effeminacy. For, generous 
as was the soil, it repaid labor, but would not, like 
many tropical zones and isles, support the human 
race in idleness ; balmy as was the climate part 
of the year, it was not enervating, and winter, 
snow-clad, was a yearly visitant. Then there were 
wild animals, especially wolves and bears, to be kept 
at bay. Last but not least, ample scope was afforded 
these first Aryas of India for the development of 
manly and even warlike qualities by their position 
in a land which they had occupied and held in 
defiance of a brave and numerous native population 
who kept up armed resistance probably for centuries, 
and receded or submitted only step by step. Not 
for several hundred years did this conquering coloni- 
zation, pushing slowly eastward, cross the watershed 
and enter the valley of the Ganges. 

7. The natives, whom the Aryas for a long time 



THE VEDAS. II3 

gathered under the general Old-Aryan designation of 
Dasyu,' belonged to a black, or at least a very dark 
race, and everything about them, from their color 
and flat noses, to their barbarous customs, such as 
eating raw or barely cooked meat, and their Shaman- 
istic goblin-worship,^ was intensely repulsive to the 
handsome, gentler mannered and, to a certain degree, 
religiously refined and lofty-minded Aryas, who 
strenuously kept away from them and were especially 
intent on avoiding the moral contamination of asso- 
ciation with them precisely in matters of religion 
and of worship. There is every reason to believe 
that this spirit of fastidious exclusiveness was the 
occasion of their collecting and ordering into one 
body the hymns and sacred songs embodying the 
religion they brought with them, and which probably 
had not yet at that early period assumed the 
finished poetic form under which it has at last 
descended to us. This work was accomplished by 
a number of specially gifted men, poets and priests 
both, the RiSHlS of India's oldest and sacred litera- 
ture, at more or less long intervals and at different 
periods, ranging over certainly the whole of five 
hundred years, probably much more. The result is 
the collection known as the Rig-Veda, — "the Veda 
of praise or of hymns,"— or, to give the full title : 
the Rig-Veda-Samtiita. 

' Meaning simply "peoples," "tribes"; a meaning which the 
word, under the Eranian form Dahyu, retains all through the Avesta 
and the Akhaemenian inscriptions, while in India it soon underwent 
peculiar changes, as will be seen. 

'^ See Story of Chaldea, p. 180, and the chapter " Turanian 
Chaldea" generally. 



114 VEDIC INDIA. 

8. The word sainJiitd means " collection." It is 
here used to denote the collection of original MAN- 
TRAS (hymns, sacred texts)/ 1028 in number, which 
compose the Rig-Veda, free of all additions in the 
way of explanations, commentaries, and the like. 
This is, without the shadow of a doubt, the oldest 
book of t lie Aryan family of nations, — in contents if 
not in actual tangible shape, for writing did not 
come into use for centuries after even the latest of 
the Rig-hymns had finally assumed the poetical 
garb in which they have come down to us, and 
which cannot have been later than 1000 B.C., while 
it was probabl)^ much earlier. And when close 
study of the hymns has given us the training 
necessary to discern, from intrinsic evidence of 
language and matter, the oldest portions even of 
this stupendous collection, — most probably about 
1500 B.C. and rather earlier than later, — we are forced 
to the admission (for which, however, we are not un- 
prepared, having already had glimpses, beyond the 
Indo-Eranian period, of a primeval or Proto-Aryan 
era)^ that many, both of the words and the con- 
ceptions that confront us there, already mark a 
secondary stage of development and are the result 
of historical growth. 

9. The earliest religious life of the Penjab Arya 
and its outer forms, as they can still faintly be traced 
here and there through the later complications of 

' An old Indo-Eranian word, familiar to us under the Eranian 
form Manthra from the Avesta. (See Slory of Media, etc., pp. 
30, 49, 86.) 

* See Story of Media, etc., p. 37. 



. THE VEDAS. II5 

the Rig-Veda, are beautifully simple — almost entirely 
family worship. The head of the household is also 
its spiritual representative and leader ; he lights the 
flame of the daily sacrifice, which he feeds with the 
simple offering of melted butter and cakes, singing 
the appropriate hymns. But this latter feature 
already contained the germ of a much more artificial 
state of things. What were appropriate hymns? 
The selection implies a form, a ritual. The 1028 
songs are divided into ten separate books or collec- 
tions (mandalas) some of them subdivided into 
smaller groups, the authorship (more probably com- 
pilation) of each being ascribed to some particularly 
renowned saintly poet-priest — Rishi — of olden times. 
The historical authenticity of these names is of course 
more than doubtful, as they became, in the course 
of time, encrusted with such a growth of myth and 
legend as to leave almost no loophole for anything 
like sober, reasonable conjecture. On the whole, 
it may be assumed, with no small degree of prob- 
ability, that behind these names would be found 
not only individuals, but also whole families in suc- 
cessive generations, in which both priesthood and 
poetic gifts were hereditary. It is these families who 
will have made the selections and gradually estab- 
lished the more and more systematized forms of 
worship which, by the time the Aryan conquest 
and colonization had, in their steady eastward pro- 
gress, reached the valleys of the Upper Ganga and 
Yamuna, had expanded into the most elaborate and 
intricate ritual and sacrificial ceremonial the world 
has ever known, in the hands of an exclusive and 



1 1 6 VEDIC INDIA. 

privileged priesthood, who, under their final name 
of Brahmans, had in the interval grown into that 
all-powerful caste, which, for nearly thirty centuries, 
has held India prostrate — the most perfect theocracy 
of any land or age, possibly rivalled only by the 
Egyptian. 

lO. Where there is a liturgy, there needs must be 
prayer-books. Such was the origin and such the 
use of two other sanihitds or collections included 
among the sacred books under the titles of YajuR- 
Veda and Sama-Veda. Both consist of hymns and 
fragments of hymns {mantras, " texts") taken out of 
the Rig, and arranged in a certain order so as to 
accompany each action and incident of any given 
religious service, and especially sacrifices — these lat- 
ter in particular having become so numerous and 
varied as to require the ministrations of a great 
many priests, — on solemn occasions as many as seven- 
teen, — of unequal rank and having entirely different, 
very strictly prescribed and limited duties. Some 
are to mutter their mantras, some to recite them 
rapidly and moderately loud, others to intone, and 
others again to sing them. The mantras of the 
Saman, which can be traced to the Rig with a very 
few exceptions — 78 out of 1 549 — are all to be chanted. 
Those of the Yajur mostly come from the same 
source, but are interspersed with passages in prose, 
containing explanations and directions for the guid- 
ance of the priests who make use of this liturgical 
manual.' They are grouped in two uneven halves 

' These explanatory interpolations are thought to be the oldest 
existing specimens of Aryan or Indo-European prose-writing. 



THE VEDAS. II7 

or parts — the " Black Yaju " (Taittiriya Samhita) 
and the "White Yaju " (VAjASANEYA Samhita) — 
an arrangement insufficiently accounted for by a 
very grotesque legend. 

II. For a long time these three SaniJiitds — the 
Rig, the Yaju, and the Saman — the bulk of them in 
reality reducible to only one, the Rig,' — formed the 
entire body of sacred lore, under the collective title 
of Traividya, /. e., " the threefold Veda," or " the 
threefold knowledge." It was only at a consider- 
ably later period, for which no precise date can be 
suggested, that a fourth one was incorporated in 
the sacred canon — the Atharya-Veda. It mayC 
therefore, in one way, be called a comparatively 
modern addition. Yet in another it may probably 
lay claim, at least in part, to a higher antiquity than 
even the Rig-hymns. Nothing could well be 
imagined more different in contents and more oppo- 
site in spirit than these two samJiitds. That of the 
Atharvan contains a comparatively small number of 
mantras from the Rig, and those only from the por- 
tions unanimously recognized as the latest, while 
the bulk of the collection along with some original 
hymns of the same kind and, in many cases, of great 
poetic beauty, consists chiefly of incantations, spells, 
exorcisms. We have here, as though in opposition 
to the bright, cheerful pantheon of beneficent deities, 
so trustingly and gratefully addressed by the Rishis 
of the Rig, a weird, repulsive world of darkly scowl- 
ing demons, inspiring abject fear, such as never 

^ The Yajur-Veda contains some original matter, which has been 
found to be not later than the Rig. 



I 1 8 VEDIC INDIA. 

sprang from Aryan fancy. We find ourselves in the 
midst of a goblin-worship, the exact counterpart of 
that with which we became familiar in Turanian 
Chaldea.' Every evil thing in nature, from a drought 
to a fever or bad qualities of the human heart, is per- 
sonified and made the object of terror-stricken pro- 
pitiation, or of attempts at circumvention through 
witchcraft, or the instrument of harm to others 
through the same compelling force. Here as there, 
worship takes the form of conjuring, not prayer; 
its ministers are sorcerers, not priests. The conclu- 
sion almost forces itself on us, that this collection 
represents the religion of the native races, who, 
through a compromise dictated by policy after a long 
period of struggle, ending in submission, obtained 
for it partial recognition from the conquering and 
every way superior race. It is easy to see how the 
latter, while condescending to incorporate the long 
abhorred ritual into their own canonical books, prob- 
ably at first in some subordinate capacity, would, so 
to speak, sanctify or purify it, by supplementing it 
with some new hymns of their own, addressed to the 
same deities as those of the Rig and breathing the 
same spirit.^ If, as is more than probable, this is the 
history of the fourth Veda, the manner of its creation 
justifies the seemingly paradoxical assertion that it is 

^ See Story of Ckaldea, chapter iii., "Turanian Chaldea," 
especially pp. 153-170. 

^ We have seen something of the kind in the fusion of the old 
Shamanism of Turanian Chaldea with the nobler religion of the 
Semitic priestly rulers, actuated most probably by a similar policy 
of conciliation. — See Story of Chaldea, pp. 174-179, and especially 
pp. 235-237. 



THE VEDAS. 



119 



at once the most modern of the four, and, in portions, 
more ancient than even the oldest parts of the Rig- 
Veda. As a samhitd, it is a manifestly late produc- 
tion, since it bears evidence of having been in use in 
the valleys of the Ganga and the Yamuna ; but the 
portions which embody an originally non-Aryan 
religion are evidently anterior to Aryan occupation. 
12. It would be a mistake to suppose that the 
mantras of the Yajur and the Saman are reproduced 
from the Rig-Veda with absolutely literal accuracy. 
Indeed this is far from being the case, and although 
there never is any difficulty in identifying the texts, 
a careful collation of them shows many, at times 
quite considerable, discrepancies. This fact is very 
easily accounted for. The oldest known manuscripts 
of the Rig- Veda do not date back much earlier than 
1500 A.D. Yet, two thousand years before that, 
about 600 B.C., the study of it, exclusively pursued 
in several theological schools, by the simple but 
arduous process of memorizing, was so accurate and 
minute that, with a view to establish the text and 
prevent interpolations, every verse, word, and syllable 
had been counted. From treatises written at that 
period we learn that the number of the words is 
153,826, that of the syllables 432,000, while that of 
the verses is differently computed and varies from 
10,402 to 10,622. Now it is quite possible, as every- 
one may find out by trying on a passage of either 
prose or verse, to alter a quotation, without materi- 
ally injuring the sense, by changing some of the 
words and substituting others of the same length, so 
that the ear will detect no difference. Indeed this 



120 VEDIC INDIA. ■ 

often happens when quotations are made from 
memory. How easily would such corruptions occur 
where there was no written standard of the canonical 
text to check and correct them ! The wonder — a 
great, standing wonder — is that the text was pre- 
served so unimpaired, on the whole and in detail. 
But where deviations did occur, of course each par- 
ticular school would not admit them, but stood by 
its own text as being the only pure one, and thus it 
came to pass that we have several versions of the 
Rig- Veda slightly differing in details. Furthermore, 
when the Rig mantras were arranged in liturgical 
order as prayer-books or sacrificial manuals for the 
priests, the compilers might slightly adapt them to 
this or that action of the ritual, and all these causes 
more than account for the divergences in the 
samhitds of the Yajur-Veda and the Sama-Veda. 

13. To be studied with such exceeding care, to 
have its every syllable numbered and treasured as 
so many crumbs of gold, a book must needs be, not 
only sacred, but old. The fear of losing some of the 
spiritual wealth is closely followed by that of losing 
the full appreciation of it — of ceasing to understand 
it. Then begins the period of commentaries. Every- 
thing has to be explained. The language has be- 
come antiquated. The poetic metres — very rich and 
varied in the Rig-Veda — are out of use, and must 
be studied laboriously as we study those of our dead 
languages. Allusions to once familiar things are no 
longer understood. Myths are lost track of ; their 
true meaning is forgot. Names that once were house- 
hold words and told their own tale, have become 



THE VEDAS. 121 

empty sounds. In short, times have changed and 
the thread is broken. On the other hand, these new 
times must be anchored on to the old. All these 
new things — new notions, new customs, new laws, 
new rites, new social conditions — must be accounted 
for, justified, consecrated by the old, now almost 
unintelligible, for these are the sole, universally 
acknowledged, holy fountain-head of the entire na- 
tional life — social and spiritual. It will be easily seen 
what a feat of intellectual gymnastics such a task 
must have been, nor will it be wondered at that there 
was enough of it to keep several generations of 
priestly specialists occupied. The beginning was 
made with the prose passages intermixed with the 
mantras of the Yajur-Veda, and which converted 
that compilation into a manual for uses that had not 
been contemplated by the old Rishis, but had gradu- 
ally grown out of sundry slender roots which twined 
their nearly invisible threads below the bare surface 
of the ancient simple worship. 

14. Such was the origin and purport of the numer- 
ous theological works which, under the name of 
BrAhmanas (composed by Brahmans and for the 
use of Brahmans), formed the staple literature of the 
Aryan Hindus through several centuries, belonging 
as distinctively to the second stage of their estab- 
lishment in the northern half of the Himalayan 
continent, that gravitating around the Upper Ganga 
and Yamuna, as the early portions of the Rig- Veda 
belonged to the first stage, with the Sindh for the 
main artery of their material life. In this way the 
Brahmanas mark the transition from Vedic culture 



122 VEDIC INDIA. 

to the later Brahmanic social order and modes of 
thought — indeed help to bring on that transition, 
some evidently belonging to the beginning, others to 
the end of that intercalary period. 

15. As was but natural, this work gave rise to 
numerous theological schools, each of which jealously 
guarded and handed down its own version of this or 
that Brahmana, just as was the case with the Vedas 
themselves. This of course materially increases the 
difficulties that beset our students, especially when 
one remembers that each of the four Vedas had 
several Brahmanas attached to it. Many are lost, 
or not yet found, but it is doubtful whether they 
would add much valuable knowledge to that im- 
parted by those which are open to our inspection, 
the survivors naturally being the most important 
and popular works. Perhaps the most interesting 
portion of each Brahmana is the appendix with 
which each is supplied, under the title of Aranyaka 
• — " belonging to the forest " — for the use of such 
Brahmans as had retired from the world into forest 
hermitages, to spend there a few quiet years, or the 
latter end of their lives. Four Aranyakas are known 
to us. 

16. As already remarked elsewhere, all religions 
that have sacred books, and, in consequence, an im- 
mutable canon of law and belief, claim for them a 
superhuman origin.' They are to be accepted, obeyed, 
believed in, as being supernaturally dictated or re- 
vealed to their human authors by the Deity. The 
body of Scriptures which the Hindus gather under 

^ See Story of Media, etc., pp, 17-19. 



THE VEDAS. 12$ 

this head is unusually large, as it comprises not only 
the mantras of the Vedas but the whole of the Brah- 
manas, including the philosophical Upanishads. 
They call it ShrUTI, " what was heard," in opposition 
to Smriti or " what was remembered," — only remem- 
bered, and therefore liable to error, to be respected 
as invested with a sort of secondary sacredness, but 
not necessarily and implicitly believed, as a matter 
of salvation. All the law books, including the great 
code of Manu, are Smriti, so are the Itihasas (see 
p. 94), the Puranas (95), and another important class, 
of which anon. It would seem to the unbiassed 
mind as though the Rig-Veda alone, being the 
corner-stone and fountain-head of India's entire 
spiritual life, would be entitled to be enshrined in it 
as Shriiti — revealed, repeated from "what was 
heard " by the Rishis who were the chosen vessels 
and instruments of the divine message to men. 
This would be logical, but would not have suited 
the Brahmans at all. This most ambitious and 
crafty of all priesthoods made such exorbitant, 
nay monstrous demands on the credulity, docil- 
ity, and liberality of the people over which they 
claimed — though they may never have quite estab- 
lished — absolute power, both spiritual and temporal, 
that not even such a contemplative, indolent, physi- 
cally enervated race as the once vigorous Aryas 
were changed into by a long sojourn amid the 
relaxing, debilitating influences of semJ-tropical 
Eastern Hindustan, would have submitted to them 
tamely and unresistingly, had they not become 
imbued with the conviction that they were obeying 



124 VEDIC INDIA. 

the will of Heaven. Now all these things that the 
Brahmans claimed for themselves were not in the 
Rig- Veda, — to begin with the claim to revelation 
itself, which the old poets did not put forth for their 
hymns, of which, indeed, they emphatically speak as 
their own creation, boasting that they made this or 
that new song, " as the carpenter fashions a wagon." 
It had all to be spun out of embryonic hints con- 
tained in scattered texts, meanings made out, twisted, 
and made to fit where needed. The text was \ 
nothing, the interpretation was everything. This 1 
was supplied by the Brahmanas, and so it came to ( 
pass that a huge body of literature — larger than we 
even yet can realize, since many Brahmanas have 
been lost or not yet found — by a host of authors, of 
a score of different theological schools, and ranging 
over between five and eight hundred years, was 
enveloped in one shroud of mystery and sacredness 
and labelled Shruti, '' Revealed." Of course such 
a high-handed proceeding could not but give rise to 
contradictions and glaring inconsistencies. Thus, 
the Brahmanas are continually referred to by the 
names of their authors or at least schools, and 
spoken of as " old " or " new," which is downright 
heresy, as SJiriiti can, properly speaking, be neither 
old nor new, having pre-existed, unaltered, through 
all eternity. But theological casuistry will thread 
its way out of worse difficulties. 

17. .S?;zr?Vz, — which might be comprehensively 
paraphrased by " venerable tradition " — embraces a 
vast range of subjects and of time, as we have seen. 
But there is one set of literary productions of this 



THE VEDAS. 12$ 

extensive class which specially belongs to the Vedas, 
and supplements the Brahmanas and Upanishads. 
They are manuals on certain principal subject-mat- 
ters connected with and partly contained in them 
and which go to the making of the perfect Vedic 
lore required of every Brahman. These subject- 
matters are six in number, and, by their nature, 
show the kind and minuteness of the study to which 
the Veda — especially the Rig-Veda of course — has 
been subjected from very early times. They come 
under the following heads : 
/ I. Phonetics (pronunciation and accentuation), — 
/ SiKSHA. 

j 2. Metre — Chhandas. 
/ 3. Grammar — Vyakarana. 

/ 4. Explanation of words (etymology, homonyms, 

\ and the like) — NiRUKTA. 

5. Astronomy — JYOTISHA. 

6. Ceremonial — Kalpa. 

\^ An exhaustive knowledge of these six things 
is considered so essential to a full understanding of 
the Veda and the proper idea of the infinitely com- 
plicated forms of worship evolved out of the Rig, 
that they are said to belong to it organically as 
members to a body, and are very realistically called 
1 Vedangas, " limbs of the Veda," as necessary to its 
articulate perfection. 

18. It follows from this that, in speaking of " the 
six Vedangas " we do not mean six distinct books or 
treatises, as is sometimes superficially concluded, but 
six subject-matters which are contained in the Veda 
as part of its substance and which are to be abstracted 



126 Vedic India. 

thereout and developed for purposes of study. We 
continually apply a similar process to Homer, or to 
Shakespeare. We might just as well speak of 
Homeric accentuation, Homeric metre, Homeric 
grammar, Homeric mythology, Homeric astronomy, 
Homeric worship, and say that these six subjects or 
studies are " the pillars of Homeric scholarship." 
It further follows that, if there were six Vedangas, 
the numbers of works or manuals treating of them 
could multiply indefinitely — which is just what did 
happen. One feature, however, was common to all 
these works ; as they were only meant to specialize 
and epitomize knowledge which for the most part 
was already scattered, in a loose and desultory form, 
through the Brahmanas, they were compiled in 
short paragraphs or aphorisms compact and con- 
cise — a sort of telegraphic memorandum style, — 
in which brevity often degenerates into obscurity 
and at times into an almost unintelligible jargon, 
that provides enough hard nuts to crack for a few 
more generations of special students. These collec- 
tions are called Sutras, literally " strung together," 
or rather " sewn together," from the root siv or syii, 
"to sew." ^ 

19. The Hindu scholars must have found this 
epitomic hand-book style particularly convenient 
and helpful to the memory, for they applied it to 
many other than specially Vedic subjects : law, phi- 
losophy, medicine, crafts. These subjects belonging 
to the " remembered " or "traditional " half of classi- 

' Sometimes the Sutras are comprised under the term " Ve- 
danga." 



THE VEDAS. 12/ 

cal literature, Smriti, the Sutras that treat of them 
are designated as Smarta-Sutras, to distinguish 
them from those that treat of matters connected 
with " revelation," or " what was heard," ' Shruti, 
and which go by the general name of Shrauta- 
StJTRAS. Of these, as of Brahmanas, there are several 
sets annexed to each Veda, and they embrace a large 
variety of subjects, minute subdivisions of the gen- 
eral matter classed under the headings of the Vedan- 
gas, till we actually find a set of Sutras on the art of 
adapting the words of the sacred hymns to music. 
It may be confidently asserted that India is the only 
country in the world where grammar, prosody, versi- 
fication, are a portion of the nation's sacred litera- 
ture, and indeed partly of its revealed scriptures, 
since the bulk of the material worked over by the 
Sutra-compilers in their peculiar style, is really found 
in the Brahmanas and, in one case, in the Veda 
itself — meaning the prose portions of the Yajur- 
Veda. However incongruous and almost grotesque 
this may appear at the first glance, if unexplained, 
it becomes quite logically intelligible when the 
connection is made plain and pursued from the 
start. 

20. The sacredness attaching to these branches of 

' It is quite natural that revelation should be conceived of as com- 
ing through the sense of hearing in an age so much anterior to 
writing, and even later, vv'hen, preferably and on principle, the entire 
sacred literature vi^as committed by students to memory, being re- 
ceived orally from the teacher's lips. Yet, curiously enough, parts of 
Shriiti are usually spoken of as seen. Thus a certain Rishi is said to 
have seen certain hymns of the Rig- Veda which have come down 
under his name. 



128 VEDIC INDIA. 

study, usually considered as emphatically a part of the 
layman's education, accounts for the extraordinary 
pains and care early bestowed on them, and which 
culminated in the most elaborate, profound, subtle, 
and finished investigations of language ever achieved 
by any people. It will be noticed that such questions 
make up four out of the six Vedangas : Phonetics, 
Metre (or versification and prosody). Etymology 
(comprising homonyms and synonyms), and Gram- 
mar proper. In the intricate system of sacrificial 
rites, based on forms pure and simple, into which the 
once beautiful Vedic worship quickly and surely de- 
generated, one misplaced accent, one mis-pronounced 
word, one falsely given quantity, was supposed not 
only to destroy the beneficial virtue of a sacrifice, but 
actually to turn it against the sacrificer. Yet how easy 
to commit such a slip when using only half intelligible 
words and forms in a language which, from being at 
all times a more or less artificial, literary idiom, was 
fast coming to be a dead one ! What wonder then 
if nice points of grammar and prosody became of 
vital importance, and exercised for centuries the 
choicest faculties, the unremitting efforts of the 
national intellect ; if each theological school fiercely 
vindicated and clung to its own version of a pas- 
sage — nay, its own pronunciation, its own accentua- 
tion of this or that word, producing a long and 
varied series of scientifically elaborated treatises 
(Sutras), the larger number of which, judging from 
quotations in those that were preserved, have evi- 
dently been lost, only the best having survived the 
natural selection of unwritten literature, the produc- 



THE VEDAS. 1 29 

tions of which must stand or fall exclusively on their 
own merits. 

21. We have now arrived at the end of a survey, 
not incomplete, if necessarily brief, of what can, in 
the stricter sense, be called Vedic Literature. In 
a wider sense, all the literature of India may, theo- 
retically, be said to come under that head, since 
the Veda — the Rig-Veda in the last instance — per- 
vades and dominates her spiritual life, even as her 
own Himalaya sways and regulates the conditions of 
her material existence. But the special and distinc- 
tive Vedic literature is that which follows directly 
from the Veda and revolves around it, treating only 
of such matters as it either contains or suggests. It 
naturally falls into three very obvious main divisions : 
I, the Mantra period — the period of collecting the 
songs with no special object beyond that of preserv- 
ing them ; 2, the Brahmana period — the period of 
commentary and a certain amount of exegesis, with 
the patent object of establishing the supremacy of 
the Brahman caste ; 3, the Sutra period — the period 
of concise special treatises for practical use at school 
and sacrifice. Chronologically, these periods do not 
strictly succeed one another, any more than the so- 
called culture ages — of stone, of brass, of iron — but 
overlap both ways over and over. Thus, if the 
second period corresponds to a well-defined stage of 
the Aryas' conquest of India — that of their advance 
eastward and their establishment in the valleys of 
the Ganga and Yamuna — the third may be said to 
straggle down actually into modern times, since 
the monumental commentary on the Rig-Veda, 



130 



VEDIC INDIA, 



the Brahmans' standard authority, was written by 
SAyana as late as the fourteenth century of our 
era.* 

' Panini's no less monumental grammar, though a much earlier 
work (4th cent. B.C.), and by its subject belonging to the Vedangas, 
can hardly be classed under strictly Vedic literature, for the language 
which he found and dissected with an acumen and thoroughness un- 
rivalled even by Greek grammarians, is not that of the Veda at all, 
and Vedic forms of speech are studied by him as curious philological 
relics. 




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^m 



CHAPTER V. 

THE RIG-VEDA : THE OLDER GODS. 

I. When we prepare to investigate one of the 
world's great religions, and before we enter on an 
analytical study of details, we naturally incline, in 
our desire to feel firm ground under our feet, to ask 
the preliminary question : What is its character? in 
what category should it be classed ? to what division 
of the spiritual world does it belong? Polytheism? 
Pantheism? Animism? or what other? When it is 
the Rig-Veda into which we are about to plunge, we 
doubly feel the need of some such guiding thread, 
some anchor to rest upon, for its 1028 hymns, bris- 
tling with names and -allusions, produce, on a first 
perusal, a labyrinthine, chaotic, wholly bewildering 
impression. But alas, a direct, plain answer to such 
a question is seldom, if ever, possible, and, in the 
case of the Rig-Veda, perhaps a little less so than in 
that of any other analogous spiritual document. The 
growth of a long series of centuries, elaborated in 
many million busy, subtle brains, containing a great 
race's spiritual food for as many centuries to come 
and materials for endless transformations, could not 

131 



132 VEDIC INDIA. 

possibly be so simple and transparent a thing as to 
admit of a sweeping definition in one word. The 
study of the Zend-Avesta showed us how many va- 
ried elements, and how intricately stratified, go to 
the making of a great national religion. The same 
unconscious work of time and influences confronts 
us in the Veda, but by so much more many-sided 
and complicated by how much the contemplative, 
introspective character which the Aryas developed 
in India is more involved and self-absorbed than that 
of their sternly simple, active, and hardy Eranian 
brethren. 

2. Let us, however, attempt to answer the ques- 
tion with which we began the present chapter, just 
to see how far and deep it will carry us. Even a 
cursory first study of our text will establish the fol- 
lowing points : A great many gods are named and 
invoked in the Rig-Veda; consequently, the religion 
it embodies is decidedly POLYTHEISTIC ; the spirits 
of deceased ancestors come in for a large share of 
honor and worship, so that ANIMISM may be said 
to be a conspicuous feature of it ; an early tendency 
to view the deity as pervading the universe, both as 
a whole and in its minutest parts, animate or inani- 
mate — a view exhaustively expressed in such words 
as these : " He whose loins the seas are " is also 
"contained in this drop of water" — early reveals a 
strong attraction towards PANTHEISM ; while many 
are the passages which explicitly inform us that the 
various gods are only different names of " that which 
is One "—more than hinting at a dim, underlying 
MONOTHEISM. There is no doubt that the purer and 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 33 

more abstract conceptions could be traced to the 
later of the many centuries which it took to evolve 
the Rig-Veda in its final form, if we but had a sure 
key to its chronology ; as it is, we have only, as in 
the Avesta, the internal evidence that goes so far in 
the hands of trained criticism, to support and guide 
our impressions, our conjectures. But one thing ap- 
pears sure: Vedic religion at no time, until opened to 
alien and grosser influences, was idolatrous. In this 
respect the Aryas of India were in no wise behind 
their brethren of Eran : nature was their temple ; 
they did not invite the deity to dwell in houses of 
men's building, and if, in their poetical effusions, 
they described their Devas in human form and with 
fanciful symbolical attributions, thereby unavoidably 
falling into anthropomorphism, they do not seem to 
have transferred it into reproductions more materi- 
ally tangible than the spoken word — into the eidolon 
(portraiture, — of limner's, sculptor's, or potter's hand) 
— which becomes the idol. 

3. And if the Rig-Veda may be shown to contain 
the germs of most of the religions and even philo- 
sophical systems which subsequently covered the 
spiritual soil of India with crops of such bewildering 
luxuriancy, the main character of this book of books, 
in nearly half its mantras, — answering, no doubt, to 
the earlier and main period of their composition and 
collection, — is simple and easy to define ; at this 
earliest and unalloyed stage, the religion which we 
see faithfully mirrored in them is NATURALISM, pure 
and simple, i. e., the worship of the Powers of Nature 
as Beings, generally beneficent, with only a very 



134 VEDIC INDIA. 

few absolutely Evil Ones, such as Darkness and 
Drought ; these latter, however, are not worshipped, 
nor even propitiated, but unconditionally abhorred 
by men, fought and conquered by the Powers of 
Good. In this unalloyed naturalism, we can watch 
the birth of myths and catch it, so to speak, in the 
act, by the simple proceeding of translating the 
names of each divine or semi-divine being as it con- 
fronts us in an invocation or in a bit of story (for 
long and especially connected and consistent stories 
are the works of a later, elaborating, and compiling 
age). We then perceive, to our astonishment, that 
they are not names at all, but either matter-of-fact 
common nouns, direct designations of the natural 
object under consideration, or else a verbal noun ex- 
pressing some characteristic action of that object — 
as "the Pounders," "the Howlers," names of the 
Storm-Winds — or an adjective, a more or less ornate 
epithet, describing one or other of its characteristic 
properties or aspects. So that, by merely dismiss- 
ing the capital initials, we reduce an incipient story 
— a primary myth containing all the live germs of 
future poetic and legendary development — into a 
fanciful, poetical description of a natural phenome- 
non — like the various stages of the sun's progress, 
the incidents of a thunderstorm, the dramatic epi- 
sodes of a drought. Special illustrations of these 
positions are scarcely needed here, since all the fol- 
lowing pages will, in a measure, consist of such 
illustrations. But, before we investigate the Vedic 
natural pantheon, it may not be amiss to repeat the 
definition of the word MYTH o-iven in another vol- 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 35 

ume, ' because it should be borne in mind through 
all the study on which we are entering, and will be 
found to cover each single case subjected to it. This 
it is : "y^ myth means simply a phenomenon of nature 
presented not as the result of a law, but as the act of 
divine or at least superhuman persons, good or evil 
pozvers. Reading and practice will show that there 
are many kinds of myths, but there is none which, 
if properly taken to pieces, thoroughly traced and 
cornered, will not be covered by this definition." 
The beauty of the Vedic myths is that they need no 
cornering, no taking to pieces, mostly being them- 
selves embryonic, and resolving themselves, at a 
touch, back into the natural elements out of which 
they directly emanated, without as yet materiahzing 
into any such flesh-and-blood reality as, say, the 
biography of a Greek god. 

4. We shall never know exactly what the inheri- 
tance was which the Aryas of the Sapta-Sindhavah 
received from the time — the so-called Indo-Eranian 
period — before the separation of the two sister races, 
the original material out of which grew the Rig-Veda. 
But there are some large primary conceptions in it 
which clearly confront us in the Zend-Avesta also, 
and which we are therefore justified in ascribing 
to the original, primeval Aryas, the ancestors of 
both. We may be tolerably well assured that so 
much of these primary conceptions as we can trace 
in the Rig-Veda unalloyed with elements betokening 
local Indian conditions and influences, represents the 

1 See Story of Chaldea, p. 294, and Ch. VII. (on Myths) generally, 
which should be carefully re-read. 



136 , VEDIC INDIA. 

earlier stage of the religion which was to become so 
complicated and manifold. It is not impossible to 
disentangle these simpler outlines from an intricate 
aftergrowth, and we are not surprised to find them 
representing the purest naturalism, with just so 
much moral consciousness and religious feeling as 
cannot be absent from the spiritual life of a highly 
gifted race.' 

5. The poets, the thinkers, and contemplatives of 
all nations have been attracted to what lay beyond 
the experience and testimony of their material senses, 
and have conceived the universe as divided into sev- 
eral " worlds," visible and invisible. Obviously the 
oldest of such speculations, the starting-point for all 
subsequent ones, is the conception of " the two 
worlds" — Heaven and Earth. Many names are 
given to each in the Rig-Veda, but in their spe- 
cial connection as a divine couple, who between them 
and by their union have given life to all creatures 
and are ever supplying them with the means of pre- 
serving that life, they are addressed, jointly and in- 
separably, as Dyaus and Prithivi. The latter 
name is singularly direct and unimaginative ; it 
means simply " the Broad," and if it offers any 
interest, it is from the suggestion of antiquity it 
contains, since that is scarcely the epithet which 
would be chosen, out of many, as specially distinc- 
tive, in a land of towering peaks and steep-sided 
ridges, and therefore it does not seem too unlikely 

^ The chapter on " Aryan Myths" (Ch. III.) in the Story of Media, 
Babylon, and Persia should by rights be re-perused here, and would 
undoubtedly prove of great assistance. 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 37 

that the name, as the conception, may have been 
familiar prior to the Aryan descent into the Penjab, 
carrying the mind back to the period (Indo-Era- 
nian ?) of dwelling on flat, boundless plains and 
steppes. 

6. Of far more positive interest and wide-reaching 
significance is the name of the other divine consort, 
Heaven — Dyaus. The word means "the_Sky." But 
this meaning has back of it another, the true original 
meaning, which shows the word to be only a descrip- 
tive designation. It comes from the root DIV, " to 
shine, to be brilliant " — and how could a tropical or 
semi-tropical sky strike the poetic and artistic eye 
more characteristically than as " the Shining," " the 
Brilliant " ? Say " the Shining One " — and the thing 
is done ; the magic wand has touched the inanimate 
object, and it has become a beings 2. person, 2. pozver 
— in classical language, a god. And what a god ! 
The original universal god of almost all Aryan 
peoples and such as, in later times, adopted the 
Aryan speech and, with it, the Aryan traditions and 
turn of mind. For Vedic Dyaus — and still more in 
the immemorial association of ideas and words, 
Dyaushpitar, " Heaven, the Father," is no other 
than Greek Zeus, ZeuS-PATER, Latin DiES-PITER, 
Jupiter, then DEUS, " a god," and Christian Deus, 
God, and lastly our modern DiO, DiOS, DiEU, with 
all the kindred derivatives from the original San- 
skrit — and probably Aryan — root : " divus," " divine," 
and others. The name of Dyaus is, more frequently 
than that of any other deity, coupled with the epi- 
thet ASURA, and that alone vouches for the immeas-'^ 



138 VEDIC INDIA. 

urable antiquity of this, probably the most primeval 
of Aryan cults, since the word Asura, which was 
originally a designation common to all beneficent 
Beings, shifted its meaning to the exact opposite, 
and came to signify evil Beings, — demons or fiends, 
whose opposition and frequently open warfare against 
the Powers of light and all good is a standing feature 
of later Hindu mythology. When the transforma- 
tion took place is not, of course, to be determined ; 
but it may be proved to have done so within the span 
of time covered by the Rig-Veda, for the word occurs 
in the great collection in both senses, — the favorable 
one in such passages as are otherwise shown to be- 
long to the earlier portion. As Asura begins to 
mean an Evil Power, another word has to be found 
to designate the Good Powers generally, and that 
word is Deva, coined out of the same root which 
gave the name of the oldest Aryan god. So the 
Aryas of India first spoke of their " Bright Ones " 
in a general way, then the notion and word both 
hardened and crystallized into the special meaning 
which w^e attach to the word " gods." The Eranian 
sister race, in the meantime, retained Asura (Eranian 
" Ahura ") in its original meaning, which Zara- 
thushtra and his followers intensified and sanctified 
by making it an integral part of the name of the 
Most Holy himself, the supreme and only Lord, 
Ahura-Mazda, while the word '' deva," doubtless to 
show their abhorrence of their former brethren's 
polytheistic tendencies, was degraded into the desig- 
nation of the fiends — the " Daevas " of the Avesta, 
the " Divs " of later Persian spirit lore — the servants 



TffE OLDER GODS. 1 39 

of the Evil One, Angra-Mainyush. The coincidences 
and divergences are too pointed and systematic to 
be casual, and give almost decisive weight to the 
hypothesis that religious antagonism was not foreign 
to the — probably late — separation of the Indo-Era- 
nian family, which seems to have remained united 
longest of all the branches of the original Aryan 
stock. 

7. Every natural object fills more than one part or 
function in the economy of the universe, has more 
than one quality or aspect wherewith to strike an 
observer — a variety easily expressed in speech by a 
number of adjectives and verbs or verbal nouns. If 
that observer be poetically inclined and therefore 
subject to moods, he will scarcely be disposed coolly 
to enumerate all these qualities and actions, produ- 
cing a sort of dry descriptive litany ; he will be more 
specially struck, according to the mood of a given 
moment, by this or that particular aspect of the ob- 
ject of his contemplation ; he will let his fancy dwell 
on that aspect, suffer himself to be entirely possessed 
by it, and develop it in his song to the exclusion of all 
others, until the reflection in his poet's soul is rendered 
tangible in form to his fellow-men, and becomes, 
although unsubstantial, a perfect, indelible creation. 
And what is this creation, seen first by the poet in 
his mind's eye, then by his cunning word made visible 
to the world ? heard first by him in his mind's ear, 
then poured by his cunning metre into music for all ? 
this creation first revealed to him in that semi-trance 
of the soul, when the poet is lifted into a world which 
is not that of every day and where voices speak to 



I40 VEDIC INDIA. 

him and visions come to him he knows not how? 
Is it a song? a picture ? it is all that and more : it is a 
god. What he has seen and heard, and rendered, is so 
complete, so real that he is the first to forget that 
what he started from was really only one of many 
aspects or qualities belonging to an already familiar 
■ deity (divinized natural object, or power), and lo ! 
the magic wand of language wielded by fancy has 
done its work, as the epithet or noun becomes a name, 
the quality or action it expresses becomes a person, and 
where tJiere luas one god, there now are tzvo, henceforth 
imagined and worshipped distinctly and separately, 
in total forgetfulness of their original identity. And 
what was a poetical description of certain attribu- 
tions, certain effects, becomes the god's personal his- 
tory, the story of his adventures. 

8. This is the way that gods — and myths — are 
born. And nowhere can the process be caught in 
the act, so to speak, as in the Rig- Veda, where 
poetical creation often hovers so closely over the 
boundary line between reality and myth as to make 
it doubtful to which it finally belongs. And no 
apter illustration of the process can we have than in 
the person of the other Sky-god, Varuna, who, 
from a simple attribution, rose to be perhaps the 
sublimest figure of the Vedic pantheon. All an- 
cient peoples used to say that " the heavens cover or 
encompass the earth and all it contains," some- 
times adding " like a tent " or "like a roof" — and 
meant it literally, not metaphorically, for to their 
unscientific minds, which knew nothing of optical 
delusions, but accepted unquestioningly the impres- 



THE OLDER GODS. I4I 

sions conveyed to them by their senses, the blue 
vault zvas a blue vault, solid and immutable — nay 
the very type of solidity and immutability, a veri- 
table _^rw2ament — a designation, by the by, which 
shows how words will survive exploded notions (like 
the rising and setting of the sun) and sometimes 
perpetuate in the popular mind the errors which gave 
them birth. Now Sanskrit has a root VRI " to cover," 
— a prolific one, which can be traced in many words 
of kindred meanings, — and one of its most direct 
formations is this very name of Varuna. It is as 
though we called the sky " the coverer, the enfolder," 
and indeed there would be nothing amiss with .any 
one of our modern poets referring to " the all-cover- 
ing, enfolding heavens." Only, we would admire the 
line as a beautiful, picturesque bit of imagery, but it 
would not crystallize in our minds into a person and 
a name (even setting apart the impossibility of such 
a thing on religious grounds) ; that is a faculty 
specially belonging to those remote ages of the 
world's youth, which have on that account been nick- 
named '' the mythopceic,'' i. e., " myth-making," ages 
— a faculty which could grow only out of an exuber- 
ant fancy, revelling in the novelty of things, unre- 
strained by knowledge, and therefore ready of belief. 
It must be well understood, however, that things 
went thus at the very beginning (whenever the begin- 
ning was), but that habit and routine soon asserted 
their deadening influence, and that what had been play 
of poetical fancy, then effusion of faith, settled into 
conventional form of speech, into stereotype phrase. 
It is, unfortunately, at this stage, further stiffened by 



142 VEDIC INDIA. 

set forms of worship, that the unconscious creations of 
the myth-makers generally reach us, even in the earliest 
monuments in our possession, and we cannot, there- 
fore, be sufficiently grateful for such stray glimpses 
into the earliest workings of the myth-making brain 
as the Rig- Veda — and that alone — still occasionally 
affords. 

9. But — to return to Varuna. Scattered through 
the Rig- Veda are several hymns indited specially in 
his honor, sometimes alone, oftener in connection 
with some other god. In Book VIL, attributed to 
the legendary Rishi Vasishtha, and at all events pre- 
served and used as a sacred heirloom by the priestly 
family of that name, these hymns are most numerous. 
They abound with short descriptive invocations and 
passages which, if pieced together, would give a very 
lifelike presentation of the god with all his direct and 
personal physical attributions and, what is still more 
interesting, his connection with sundry natural 
phenomena that cannot possibly be dissociated from 
the sky in its several aspects. The fundamental 
idea expressed by Varuna's name (as explained 
above) is distinctly traceable in many of these pas- 
sages, but in none so much as in the following three, 
which may be said to contain a paraphrase or ampli- 
fication of the name of the " all-enfolder " : he is said 
to " cover the worlds as with a robe, with all the 
creatures thereof and their dwellings " (VIII., 41), 
to " enfold the heavens," and to " measure out the 
earth and mark her uttermost bounds " (the horizon, 
where sky and earth seem to touch). The same 
idea- -the keynote to the god's special identity — will 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 43 

be clearly seen to lurk in this bit of grand poetic 
imagery : " He has encompassed the nights around ; 
he has, by his wisdom, established the dawns ; he 
visibly encompasses all things " (VIII. , 41). What 
particularly strikes in this last passage is the moral 
quality of wisdom which is added to the god's physi- 
cal attributions. This is the beginning of the pro- 
cess of spiritualization which all nature-gods undergo 
at some stage of their career : from being " the Sky " 
he becomes the " god^ythe Sky," and as such pre- 
sides over all the numerous phenomena of which the 
sky is the seeming scene ; the alternations of light 
and darkness come under his rule, as well as the 
heavenly bodies themselves, and as nothing is more 
obviously and strikingly obedient to a law, so regular 
in a certain immutable round as these very phenom- 
ena, Varuna rose to be the supreme embodiment 
and guardian, then the maker of that law and, 
by an easy and natural transition, of all law and 
order, moral and cosmic both — " King of gods and 
men " in mythic phrase. " King" is the title more 
especially consecrated to him, though he is also fre- 
quently given that of Asura. As always happens in 
such cases, the god's physical and spiritual nature 
blend, and merge into each other, and separate 
again, until it is very difficult at times to decide 
when certain descriptive phrases apply to him as the 
material sky itself, or as a power outside of it and 
governing it. The hymns consecrated to him con- 
tain some very grand poetry and, at all events, it is 
quite transparent and easy to comprehend after what 
has just been said. _ Sun and moon are said to be 



144 VEDic lyniA. 

his eyes, but his relation to the former is expressed 
ill especially varied and fanciful imagery. Some- 
times the sun is Varuna's golden steed, sometimes 
the golden-winged bird, his messenger, that dives 
into a sea of light ; then again it is a golden swing 
h'lng up on high; on one occasion, in a riddle-style 
very familiar to the Rishis, Varuna is said to hold up 
the mighty tree by its top in the groundless space, 
with its roots up, — the tree-top being again the sun 
and the roots its beams. 

lO. Besides " the two worlds " irodasi. Heaven 
and Earth), which are the first divine couple of all 
mythologies, there is a third. which, from peculiar 
local conditions, early assumed a still greater im- 
portance in the eyes of the Aryas of India and 
almost monopolized their passionate interest. This 
is the world " which lies between the two others " 
— antariksha, the Atmosphere or Air-region, — where 
the winds do battle, where the clouds gather and 
disperse, where the waters collect until they form 
a giant reservoir, a mid-air or celestial sea,' which 
then is poured down on the earth to feed and 
refresh her. From its seeming position, this fateful 
region might well be made a dependence of the sky 
and given into King Varuna's keeping. This is why 
he is said to have hollowed out paths for the rivers 
which flow by his command ; and, on earth, the Seven 
Rivers are once called " his sisters " ; while in an- 
other very remarkable passage he is likened unto a 
sea, into which all the rivers flow yet never fill it— 

' Compare the Vouru-Kasha of the Avesta, Story of Media, etc., 
p. 64. 



THE OLDER GODS. I45 

a striking image for the cloudy, rain-laden sky. Of 
course he is also the giver of rain which, as so fre- 
quently throughout the Rig-Veda, is called " the 
milk of the kine," i. e., the rain-clouds, which hold 
the waters as the cow the milk in her udder. 

II. A few coherent passages culled from various 
hymns to Varuna will now prove intelligible, and 
merge the fragmentary features of this sublimest of 
Vedic deities into a more complete and harmonious 
figure. One Rishi sings: 

' ' Sing a hymn, pleasing to Varuna the King — to him who spread 
out the earth as a butcher lays out a steer's hide in the sun. — 
He sent cool breezes through the woods, put mettle in the steed 
[the sun], milk in the kine [clouds], wisdom in the heart, fire in 
the waters [lightning in the clouds], placed the sun in the heavens, 
the Soma on the mountains.^ — He upset the cloud-barrel and let 
its waters flow on Heaven, Air, and Earth, wetting the ground 
and the crops. — He wets both Earth and Heaven, and soon as he 
wishes for those kine's milk, the mountains are virrapt in thunder- 
clouds and the strongest walkers are tired. . .7" (V., 85.) 

"Varuna laid out the sun's path, and sent the waters coursing 
to the sea [celestial or atmospheric — samiidra\ ; for the days he 
appointed their wide tracks and guides them as a racer does his 
mares. — His breath is the wind that rushes through the air. , . 
(VII., 87.) He leads forth the great, the holy sun-steed, that 
brings a thousand gifts. — When I gaze upon his face, I seem to 
see him as a blazing fire, as the King causes me to behold the 
splendor of light and darkness in the heavens. . . . (VII., 88.) 
The stars up there, that are seen at night, where do they hide 
in the day ? But Varuna's ordinances are immutable and the moon 
goes shining brightly through the night. . . .(I., 24.) He who 
knows the path of the birds as they fly through the ample space, 

* Soma is the plant from which the sacrificial beverage is pre- 
pared, of which much more later on — the Haoraa of the Eranians. 
See Story of Media, etc., p. 65. 



146 VEDIC INDIA. 

and on the sea the ships, ... he who knows the track of 
the wind, . . . he is seated in his mansion protecting the law, 
Varuna, Almighty King, and looks down attentively from there on 
all that is hidden, on all that has been and is still to be done. 
Arrayed in golden mail, he wraps himself in splendor as in a gar- 
ment^ and around him sit his spies [the stars at night, the sun- 
beams by day]." — (I., 25.) 

12. The "law" of which Varuna is keeper, the 
" immutable ordinances " which he has established 
and jealously maintains, are The Rita — origi- 
nally the Cosmic Order, which regulates the mo- 
tions of the sun and moon and stars, the alterna- 
tions of day and night, of the seasons, the gathering 
of the waters in clouds and their downpour in rain ; 
in short, the order that evolves harmony out of 
chaos, and the visible scene of whose working is the 
sky. That this order is the result of a higher Law 
is clear — a law which the gods themselves (the Sun, 
the Moon, the Winds, etc.) can never transgress ; 
and that it is a beneficent law, is no less evident. 
Therefore Rita is holy, is true, it is " the right 
path " — the Right itself, the Absolute Good, which 
is at once transferred from the tangible and visible 
into the invisible and abstract world — from the 
physical into the spiritual. There is a moral Rita 
as there is a material one, or rather the same Rita 
rules both worlds. What Law is in the physical, 
that Truth, Right, is in the spiritual order, and both 
are Rita. Therefore the god who is the ordainer 
and keeper of the physical law is also the guardian 

* Compare the attributions of Ahura-Mazda in the Avesta. See 
Story 0/ Media, etc., p. 61, 



THE OLDER GODS. 147 

and avenger of the moral law, the punisher of sin. 
The Arya loved light — the light of day and of the 
sun — with a passionate adoration and transports of 
gratitude, equalled only by his loathing and fear of 
darkness, with its dangers and snares, in any form ; 
and lying and wrong-doing, — in a word, sin — was 
to him moral night, with all its horrors. Now 
Varuna was the dispenser of both light and dark- 
ness ; when displeased with mortal man, he turned 
his face from him, and it was night. The accepted 
poetical expression of this fact was, " Varuna binds 
the sinner with his fetters," For man felt as help- 
less in the dark as though bound and given over 
without defence to the dangers he could not see. 
Disease was another of Varuna's fetters, and lastly — 
death. To Vdruna, therefore, man when oppressed 
with the consciousness of wrong-doing, of sin, cries 
out for pardon and mercy. And there are in the 
Rig-Veda a few penitential hymns which, for beauty 
and depth of feeling, rival the best of the kind in 
any literature. Vasishtha's (in Book VII.) are the 
most impressive. 

13. The poet thinks back with rapture of a time 
when he was high in Varuna's favor ; he describes 
a glorious vision he once had, when it was given him 
to behold the god face to face ; he was taken on 
board Varuna's own ship, and together they glided 
over the celestial waters, with gently rocking mo- 
tion ; and there in that ship, on that day of blessed- 
ness, the god gave him the wondrous power of song, 
to be his Rishi so long as days and dawns follow one 
another. But there has been a change: in some 



148 VEDIC INDIA. 

way, unknown to himself, Vasishtha has angered his 
divine friend, who has heaped woes on him, and sent 
sickness to chastise him, and from the depth of his 
misery he sends forth his moan : 

"What has become of our friendship, when we used to commune 
so harmlessly together ? -when I was allowed access to thy house of 
the thousand gates ?^— If thy friend, O Varuna, who was dear to thee, 
if thy companion has offended thee, do not, O holy one, punish us 
according to our guilt, but be thou the poet's shelter." (VII., 88.) 

" I speak unto myself : when shall I be once more united with 
Varuna? Will he again accept my offering without displeasure? 
When shall I, consoled at heart, behold him reconciled? — I ask, 
wishing to know my sin ; I go to ask the wise. They all tell me the 
same in sooth : ' King Varuna it is who is wroth with thee.' — What, 
O Varuna, was that worst of misdeeds for which thou smitest thy 
worshipper and friend? . , . Absolve us from the sins of our fathers, 
and forgive those which we committed ourselves. Release Vasishtha 
like a calf from the rope. — It was not our own will — it was seduction, 
an intoxicating drink, passion, dice, thoughtlessness. The stronger 
perverts the weaker ; even sleep brings on unrighteousness." 
(VII., 86.) 

" Let me not yet, O Varuna, enter into the house of clay. Have 
mercy, almighty, have mercy ! — If I go along, trembling like a cloud 
driven by the wind, have mercy, almighty, have mercy. — Through 
want of strength, thou pure one, have I gone astray : have mercy, 
almighty, have mercy ! — Thirst came upon the worshipper, though 
he stood in the midst of the waters : have mercy, almighty, have 
mercy ! — Whenever we, being but men, O Varuna, commit an offence 
before the heavenly host, whenever we break thy law through thought- 
lessness, have mercy, almighty, have mercy ! " (VII., 89.) 

These hymns of Vasishtha's form a cycle, a whole 
more complete and personal than is usual in the Rig- 
Veda, yet will bear supplementing with a few more 
short passages of particular significance, from other, 
scattered hymns, like the following : 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 49 

" However we may transgress thy law, day by day, after the manner 
of men, O Varuna, do not deliver us unto death, nor to the blow of 
the furious, nor to the wrath of the spiteful. My songs flee to thee 
. . . as birds to their nest . . . as kine to the pastures . . . (I., 25.) 
Take from me my own misdeeds, nor let me pay, O King, for others' 
guilt. . , . (II. 28.) That I may live, take from me the upper rope, 
loose the middle, and remove the lowest.^ (I., 25.) 

14. A peculiarity of the worship of Varuna in 
the Rig-Veda is that he is invoked, more often 
than alone, jointly with his brother, MiTRA ("the 
Friend "), who represents sometimes the sun itself, 
and sometimes Light generally, or again the Power 
who rules the sun and brings him forth to shine on 
the world at the proper time. In this mild, wholly 
beneficent deity we recognize the Mithra of the 
Eranians, with whom the Avesta makes us so inti- 
mately acquainted — only he has paled somewhat 
and become more impersonal, although he has re- 
tained all the qualities which distinguished him be- 
fore the separation of the two races, especially that 
of the all-seeing and truth-loving god.'' But some- 
how he has lost his individuality (only one single 
hymn — III., 59 — is addressed to him personally and 
separately), and has almost merged it with that of 
Varuna, all of whose attributions, functions, and 
honors he shares. The sun is said to be " the eye 
of Mitra and Varuna," as well as Varuna's alone, 
and Light is the chariot on which both gods, insepa- 
rably, ride through space on their appointed path, 

' We must imagine a man bound to a post — round the shoulders, 
the middle of the body, and the ankles. 
^ See Story of Media, etc., pp. 67-72. 



150 VEDIC INDIA. 

and of which it is once said that it is golden at break 
of day, while its poles take the color of a gray 
metal at the setting of the sun. They are joint 
keepers of the Rita, avengers, but also forgivers, of 
sin— in short, there is not a thing said of Varuna 
that is not repeated of both, not a thing asked of 
Varuna that is not requested of both, only perhaps 
not quite so emphatically, with not quite the same 
wealth of striking imagery. Then it is Mitra's own 
particular business to wake men and call them to the 
duties of a new day. Hence in time he somehow 
comes to be associated with the phenomena of Hghtji, 
and Varuna to be considered as more especially the 
nocturnal sky, although originally there is no such 
distinction, and he is proved by a hundred passages 
to have been the lord of both day and night. But 
it took root, and the commentators already assert it 
positively. This was the beginning of a curious 
transformation which made of the Varuna of the 
later, Brahmanic, pantheon a being entirely different 
from the sublime Sky-god of the Rishis, although 
the change can be traced, step by step, back to the 
Vedic presentation. Thus, in the later mythology, 
Vdruna is merely — a Water-god : stripped of all his 
celestial attributions, nothing is remembered but his 
association with the waters — the atmospheric sea and 
rain-rivers, — and this watery realm is transferred to 
the surface of the earth. Then again, of his moral 
nature only the sterner, the forbidding, side is re- 
tained ; he is the punisher only, and the persist- 
ent use of the conventional expressions : " fetters," 
" ropes," " nooses," suggests a certain cruelty and 



THE OLDER GODS. 151 

malignancy utterly foreign to the majestic and just, 
but also merciful, King of Heaven, who is expressly 
said to " take pity even on the sinner." ' 

15. Varuna and Mitra are both Adityas. That 
means Sons of Aditi. Aditi, in consequence, is 
habitually entitled " Mother of the Gods," and is, 
undoubtedly, herself a divine person, or, as we 
would say, a goddess. But the goddess of what ? 
Or what does she represent in the order of natural 
objects or phenomena in which all mythical concep- 
tions have at some time, originally, had their roots ? 
To decide this question is the more difificult that 
aditi originally is merely an adjective, and used as 
such quite as frequently as in the other way, so that 
the interpreter is frequently confronted by a doubt 
as to the proper manner of rendering the word in a 

' Although not a sign of anything ignoble can be discovered about 
the Varuna of the early Rishis, it must be admitted that in their 
efforts to render the various aspects of the multiform Sky-god, they 
did not always keep clear of the quaintness, amounting to grotesque- 
ness, which is such a disturbing feature of classical Indian poetry, 
such a blemish of Indian art. It is fortunate that the men of the 
early Vedic ages did not yet attempt to render word-pictures in plas- 
tic form, for when Varuna is said, on one occasion, to be " four- 
faced, "^ in right transparent reference to the four cardinal points — 
— an Indian chisel would not have failed to represent a human figure 
with four faces, if not four heads on one neck. And from the hosts 
of nightmare monstrosities which people the later temples, it is easy 
to imagine what Indian art would have produced in the way of sculp- 
tural illustration to such passages — rare it is true — as that where 
Varuna is described as having three shining tongues in his mouth, — 
sun, moon, and lightning — (Atharva-Veda), or as "pushing onward 
with his tongue," or lastly as " climbing up the heavens and dispersing 
the foes' evil spells with his Jla7iiing foot " (the sun again ! Rig- Veda, 
VIII., 41). 



152 VEDIC INDIA. 

given passage. On the other hand, as is usually the 
case with such ambiguous expressions, the literal 
meaning of the common adjective gives us a very- 
helpful clue towards the solution of the problem pre- 
sented by the name. " Aditi " means " not bound, 
not limited," but it is difficult to determine by tvhat 
the being thus described is " not bound." Some- 
times it manifestly refers to unboundedness in space, 
so in this verse, partly quoted already, of a hymn to 
Mitra-Varuna : 

" Mitra and Varuna, you mount your chariot, which is golden 
when the dawn bursts forth, and has iron ' poles at the setting of the 
sun ; from thence you see what is boundless [adiH, space], and what 
is limited [difi," the earth], what is yonder and what is here." 

At other times the boundlessness of time — eternity 
or immortality — is suggested by the context, and the 
bonds, freedom from which is expressed, are those of 
death. This is clearly indicated by the following 
beautiful passage, supposed to be spoken by a living 
man musing on his own coming death. 

" Who will give me back to the great Aditi, that I may see again 
father and mother? Agni [fire], the first of immortal gods, . . 
he will give me back to the great Aditi, that I may see again father 
and mother." (I., 24.) 

^ A^/as is translated "iron" for convenience, but, though it is the 
name of a metal and philologically answers the eisen, " iron " of our 
modern language, it has been impossible as yet to ascertain what was 
" the third metal " mentioned in the Rig- Veda, there being no doubt 
about gold or silver. 

^ The particle a is negative, which means that, being prefixed to a 
word, it annuls the meaning conveyed by that word. So did means 
"bound, limited" ; therefore adid means " «<?/ bound, not limited." 



THE OLDER GODS. 153 

This alludes to the custom of cremation and its 
accepted religious meaning. Fire, while consuming 
the body, conveys the spirit to the boundless — and 
bondless — world, where it is reunited to those who 
went before. In another, and very quaint passage, a 
horse about to be sacrificed is to become aditi (ad- 
jective) — a phrase which becomes intelligible when we 
know that animals offered in sacrifice were supposed, 
literally, to go to the gods, there to lead forever a sort 
of beatified existence. 

16. It will be noticed that Aditi (as a person or 
divine being), whether representing boundlessness in 
space or in time, or generally freedom from bonds of 
any kind, always seems to mean not only that, but 
something more, tending always higher and deeper 
into pure abstraction, until in the following passage, 
it is broadened into the most abstruse metaphysical 
symbolism : 

' ' Aditi is the sky. Aditi is the intermediate region \antariksha — 
the atmosphere] ; Aditi is father and mother and son ; Aditi is all the 
gods and the five tribes ; Aditi is whatever has been born ; Aditi is 
whatever shall be born." (I., 89.) 

This remarkable effort at an exhaustive definition 
describes not only boundless space, eternity, and im- 
mortality, but universal, all-embracing, all-producing 
nature itself, or — to grasp the last and highest meta- 
physical abstraction — Infinity, THE INFINITE, Such 
is the final meaning, which has been abstracted and 
condensed from the name and conception of Aditi, 
by the most philosophical students, out of all the 
passages directly referring to or bearing on this crea- 



154 VEDIC INDIA. 

tion of the contemplative Indian mind. Of all who 
have treated this ofttimes puzzling subject, no one 
has used more beautiful language or more convincing 
argument than Professor Max Miiller. " Aditi," he 
says, " is now and then invoked in the Veda as the 
Beyond — as what is beyond the earth, and the sky, 
and the sun, and the dawn." This gives the gist of 
the question, which then is developed in one of the 
master's most exquisite and brilliant pages : 

" Aditi is in reality the earliest name invented to express the Infi- 
nite, not the Infinite as the result of a long process of abstract reason- 
ing, but the visible Infinite, visible by the naked eye, the endless 
expanse beyond the earth, beyond the clouds, beyond the sky. . . 
The idea of the Infinite was revealed, was most powerfully impressed 
on the awakening mind by the East. It is impossible to enter fully 
into all the thoughts and feelings that passed through the minds of 
the early poets when they found names for that far, far East from 
whence even the early dawn, the sun, the day, their own life seemed 
to spring. . . . Aditi is a name for that distant East ; but Aditi 
is more than the dawn. Aditi is beyond the dawn, and in one place 
the dawn is called ' the face of Aditi.' That silent aspect awakened 
in the human mind, the conception of the Infinite, the Immortal, the 
Divine. . . . Aditi is not a prominent deity in the Veda, never- 
theless hers is a familiar name, that lives on in that of the Adityas — 
the sons of Aditi. . . ." 

17. Varuna and Mitra then are Adityas. We 
know now what is the far from literal meaning of such 
terms as *'Sons of Aditi" : Sons of Eternity, — Sons 
of Immortality, — Sons of boundless Time and Space, 
— there is nothing but what is metaphorical, appro- 
priate, and poetically beautiful in all these names for 
the deified impersonations of Sky and Light. They 
are shared by several more divine beings, who seem 
but paling reflections of their great brothers. Of 



THE OLDER GODS. I55 

these only one, Aryaman, is frequently addressed 
with words of praise and homage, though never 
alone, but jointly with Mitra and Varuna. A fourth, 
Bhaga, quite impersonal and only occasionally men- 
tioned along with the others, is of great interest to 
us because of his name, which, in a very slightly 
modified form, BOGH, has been adopted by the en- 
tire Slavic branch of the Indo-European family of 
nations as that of God — the one God of Christian 
monotheism. The Adityas are said to be seven ; yet 
only two more are named occasionally in the hymns ; 
the seventh remains in a shadow of uncertainty, 
while now and then an eighth is spoken of; once or 
twice the Fire-god would seem to be that eighth.' 
But all this is very vague and misty. One thing, how- 
ever, is evident from the hymns to all the Adityas, 
which are quite numerous : they all share, — and so 
does Aditi herself — in the special attributions so char- 
acteristic of Mitra and Varuna ; they are all keepers of 
the Rita and its innumerable ordinances, they all are 
guardians of purity and truth ; avengers — and also 
forgivers — of sins, healers and givers of health, and 
the prayer " to be held or made guiltless before the 
face of Aditi and the Adityas " is a familiar and oft- 
repeated one. 

' Just as Atar is once mentioned in the Avesta as an eighth 
Amesha-Spenta, though otherwise the "Bountiful Immortals" are 
always seven in number. That there is some affinity between the 
original conceptions — Amesha-Spentas and Adityas — has always been 
suspected, and the names do not militate against it, seeing that 
Aditya, in the sense of " Son of Immortality " would not match 
badly with Amesha, "Immortal." See Story of Media, etc., pp. 
41 and 78. 



156 VEDIC INDIA. 

18. This is a prayer often — and naturally — ad- 
dressed to Agni — Fire — the purifier and men's most 
intimate friend and protector, towards whom they 
turn with the same " respectful tenderness and affec- 
tionate familiarity " which we found so striking a 
feature of the Eranians' worship of the same deity 
under his Eranian name of Atar.' 

" O Agni [the Vedic Rishi invokes], accept this log which I offer 
to thee, blaze up brightly and send up thy sacred smoke ; touch the 
topmost heavens with thy mane and mix with the beams of the sun. 
Thou Lord of wealth, drive away from us the enemies, give us rain 
from heaven, and food inexhaustible, and drink a thousand-fold. 
Thou youngest of the gods, their messenger, thou goest, O sage, 
wisely between the race of gods and that of men, meaning well 
by both." (TI., 6.) 

Among the hundreds of hymns to Agni treasured 
up in the Rig-Veda, few indeed could be found that 
did not contain some allusion — description, simile, 
epithet — to the absolutely literal and material nature 
of the original fire-worship in Aryan India. Dr. Muir 
has collected a vast number of such characteristic 
expressions, sometimes consisting of one or two 
words, sometimes of a whole descriptive sentence 
which, if strung, or rather grouped, together, would 
compose the most complete, the most vivid and 
picturesque portrayal of the dread, yet familiar ele- 
ment in its various aspects of regulated beneficial 
activity, of resistless power or devastating fury. 
" Fed by wood, with blazing, tawny mane, he sends 
up his smoke like a pillar to the sky, or like a waver- 
ing banner. Though headless and footless, he rushes 

' See Story of Media, etc., p. 79/". 



THE OLDER GODS. 157 

through the woods Hke a bull lording it over a herd 
of cows, roaring like a lion or like mighty waters. He 
envelops the woods, consumes and blackens them 
with his tongue ; with his burning iron grinders, his 
sharp, all-devouring jaws, he shears the hairs of the 
earth, like a barber shaving a beard. When he 
has yoked his wind-driven coursers to his car, the 
beautiful, fleet, ruddy steeds that can assume all 
shapes, he bellows like a bull and invades the 
forests ; the birds are terrified at the noise when 
his grass-devouring sparks fly round, and his wheels 
mark his path with blackness. He is a destroyer 
of darkness and sees through the gloom of the 
night. The world which had been swallowed up 
and wrapped in darkness, and the heavens, are 
manifested at his appearance, and the gods, the 
sky, the earth, the waters, the plants, rejoice in his 
friendship." * 

19. To the beings and things that rejoice in 
Agni's friendship, should be added first and fore- 
most — men. Familiar and even bold as the Aryan 
Hindu generally was in his intercourse with his 
Devas, whom he readily addressed as " friends," Agni 
alone of immortals appears to him so close and dear 
as to be entitled " brother " : " Father Heaven, guile- 
less mother Earth, brother Agni, be gracious to us ! " * 

' J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. v., pp. 21 1— 213. The 
sentences, sometimes single epithets or brief similes, which are here 
grouped into a consecutive description, are scattered through the 
entire collection of hymns, and picked out of a far larger number 
gathered by Dr. Muir. 

'^ '''' Dyaush pitah, Prithivt malar adhrug, Agne bhrdtar. . . ." 



158 VEDIC INDIA. 

implores one poet. For, " friendly to mankind, he 
despises no man ; kindly disposed to the people, he 
lives in the midst of every family " (X., 91, 2) ; 
he is a father, mother, brother, kinsman, and friend, 
and one of his habitual and preferred surnames 
is "Agni Vaishvanara," i. e., "Agni that be- 
longs to all men." And indeed, what other deity 
actually dwells with man — " the immortal among the 
mortals " — as his guest and constant companion, 
his assistant in humble household tasks, his light- 
giver and home-maker? No wonder he is called the 
special protector of householders, nay the house- 
holder par excellence, making the hearth sacred and 
all the acts of which it is the centre and agent. Yet, 
dear as Agni is held in his capacity of domestic 
friend, he is still more revered when, as mentioned 
in the hymn quoted above (p. 156), he goes back and 
forth as " the messenger between the two worlds," 
or " the two races " (of gods and men), the mediator 
through whom alone constant intercourse between 
the two is kept up. But it is not the Agni of the 
hearth — the Domestic Fire — who fulfils this high 
mission ; it is the Sacrificial Fire, whose holy flames 
are not desecrated by any mean office, but are en- 
kindled at every prayer time — dawn of day, noon, 
and sunset are the three regular prayer times, the 
Agnihotras — to receive and consume the offerings 
of the worshippers, principally melted butter, milk 
curds, and cakes. Melted butter especially was 
poured abundantly on the flames, as it produces a 
brilliant and vigorous blaze, hence such epithets be- 
stowed on Agni as " butter-haired," " butter-backed," 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 59 

"butter-formed," and "gleaming with butter." As 
no sacred function — from great, solemn religious 
ceremonies like the coronation of kings or other pub- 
lic special occasions to the humblest householder's 
family prayers — could be performed without one or 
more sacrifices, it was but natural that Agni should 
have been said to know all about sacrifices and ritual, 
indeed to have instituted sacrifice, first among the 
gods, then among men, have been entreated to con- 
duct the sacrifice in flawless order and make it ac- 
ceptable to the gods, and that among the many 
honorary titles bestowed on him, should have been 
that of " divine Hotar" or priest: 

" Agni rectifies all these mistakes which we ignorant men commit 
against your prescriptions, O ye most wise gods. Those matters relat- 
ing to sacrifice which we mortals of feeble intellects, with our imper- 
fect comprehension, do not understand, may Agni, the venerated 
priest \Jwtar'\ who knows all these points, adjust, and worship the 
gods at the proper seasons." (X., 2, 4-5.) 

20. The kindling of the fire on the altar was 
itself the most sacred of all religious ceremonies 
and a complicated one, requiring time and exertion. 
For the fire originally was not lit from another flame 
or blown into life from embers, but produced anew 
by friction out of two peculiarly shaped pieces of 
wood. This proceeding was given a mysterious — or 
rather mystical — significance and called " the Birth 
of Agni." The parents of the ever newly born god 
(therefore " the eternally young, or " the youngest " 
— Yavishtha) were the " two sticks," or pieces of 
wood," — the Arani — out of which friction called 



l6o VEDIC INDIA. 

forth the spark. The simple apparatus might be 
called a fire-drill or fire-churn, since the action con- 
sisted in rapidly twirling the upper piece (generally 
made of Ash vattha- wood, Ficus Religiosa, — hence its 
sacredness, see p. 29) in the lower hollowed piece, of 
some softer wood. The incongruity between the 
sacredness ascribed to the action, the mysteriousness 
of the result, and the almost ludicrously common- 
place tool, appears to have struck those earnest wor- 
shippers, in whom faith by no means excluded 
thought, somewhat as a puzzle, which, however, their 
sense of reverence prevented them from carrying to 
the extent of scoffing or scepticism. Innumerable 
are the passages which most simply and realistically 
describe the familiar process, then express an almost 
childlike wonder that a god should have such homely, 
feeble beginnings. " This process of generation has 
begun ; let us rub out Agni as heretofore. This god 
is deposited in the two pieces of wood. . . . He 
is produced of them like a new-born infant." In one 
place wonder is expressed that a living being should 
spring out of dry wood ; in another, that, born of a 
mother that cannot suckle him, he should grow so 
rapidly and at once begin his work as messenger. 
" This I declare, O Heaven and Earth," one poet 
exclaims, horrified, " the son, no sooner born, devours 
his parents. But," he hastens to add, " I, a mortal, 
cannot judge a god; Agni is wise and knows." 

21. So far, nothing can be plainer than the ma- 
terial nature of the god. There is even very little 
anthropomorphism about it. It is the pure, un- 
disguised element of Fire. Nor is any abstraction 



THE OLDER GODS. l6l 

attempted when Agni is entreated to disperse the 
fiends (of darkness) with his club, or is said to look 
on the world with a thousand eyes. All this clearly 
lies within his attributions as light-giver and dis- 
penser of heat on earth. But it is not on earth alone 
that light and heat abide ; not to earth alone is their 
action limited. A people less thoughtful and observ- 
ant than the ancient Aryas could not fail to asso- 
ciate the phenomena of lightning with those of fire, 
or, when contemplating the sun — SlJRYA — in his '^ 
exuberant glory of light and heat, to come to the 
conclusion that their own fire — whether mildly illum- 
ing the household hearth, blazing, butter-fed, on the 
altar, or devouring forests and hostile forts — was but 
his earthly substitute, or rather that the two were 
one, of one substance, variously manifested. " And 
indeed, this is the view most explicitly expressed in 
this one brief line : "Agni is Surya in the morning, 
Surya is Agni at night." It is an accepted and oft- 
repeated saying that Agni has more than one abode, 
sometimes two, and then again — more truly — three^ 
on earth, as fire ; in the heavens, as the sun ; in the-- 
atmosphere, as lightning. From this to identifying 
all three together is but one step, and it is frequently 
taken. The humble birth — from " two dry sticks " 
— which suited the god in his earthly manifestation, 
no longer accounted for his existence in those exalted 
spheres ; " Son of the Waters " — Apam-Napat ' — is _ 

' The name is certainly older than the Aryan colonization of 
India ; it must be Indo-Eranian at least, if not older still, since we 
find it in the Avesta as one of the habitual surnames of Atar. See 
Story of Media, etc., pp. 37,45, 80. 



1 62 VEDIC INDIA. 

the mystic but appropriate name of Agni, the 
Lightning, who, after lying long hidden in the 
celestial cloud-ocean (Samudra), flashes forth from 
it, in very truth " water-born." It is only an obscurer 
form of the same myth when Agni is alluded to as 
" the son of seven mothers," or, " of many mothers," 
or of " the Mothers " generally, because then the 
clouds, under the name of ApAS, "the waters," are 
taken individually, separately, from the mass of 
suspended waters, which is imagined as the celestial 
sea, the Samudra. 

22. Like the Eranians, the Aryas of India held 
that Fire dwelt not only in water, but in plants. 
Both positions seem, at first sight, untenable. Yet 
we saw how easily the first of them is justified by 
fact, and a moment's thought shows that the sec- 
ond is but the sequel of it. For, placing ourselves 
for a moment on their standpoint, fire could not be 
brought out of plants (wood comes of trees and trees 
are plants) if it were not in them. Fire — heat — 
hidden in the plant, is what moves the sap, quickens 
the growth ; it is the latent principle of the plant's 
life. But how did it get into them ? Very simply : 
it descended straight from heaven, with the waters 
which are its native element, in the showers which, 
with thunder and lightning, pour down on the thirsty 
earth. In the rain Fire descends, not upon, but into 
the ground, and thence rises into the plants as sap 
and life ; do we not say " vital spark " ? There is 
no lack of passages in the Rig-Veda which more or 
less transparently describe this very process. For 
instance : " His road is the flood that pours through 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 63 

the arid space ; he reaches earth with the clear 
waters ; he devours what is old (wood), and pene- 
trates into new plants." (I., 95, 10.) And again : 
" When he is brought down from the highest Father 
[Dyaus, Heaven], he climbs into the sapful plants 
. to be born again, ever most young." 
23. This is undoubtedly one of the ways in which 
Agniwas supposed to have descended to the earth. 
But this manifestation is accomplished in a very 
roundabout way and continually repeated. The 
question remained, in what more direct manner he 
came among men for the first time in his more fa- 
miliar and visible form — for Agni's original home is 
not sought on earth. It is said : " Agni was born first 
in heaven ; his second birth is with us ; the third 
in the clouds, imperishable. . . ." (X., 45, i.) The 
Aryas, no doubt, had several myths embodying their 
beliefs or traditions — speculations or reminiscences 
— on this fascinating question, which has not only 
not lost any of its interest in the course of the ages, 
but rather gained more, in the first place because we 
are better able to measure and appraise all that fire 
has done for our race, in the second because we 
have hardly arrived nearer to a reliable or at least 
plausible solution, and we are so made that curiosity 
never relents until satisfied. But the Rig-Veda is 
not a book of mythology. Myths are not told by 
the old Rishis, but only alluded to as things well 
known to their audience, — just as a modern preacher 
might refer to Jonah's adventure with the whale or 
the Hebrew boys' fortitude before the fiery ordeal, 
without every time narrating at length the familiar 



164 VEDIC INDIA. 

Bible stories. From such brief snatches and allu- 
sions we gather that Agni was brought from afar 
by some superhuman agency ; and he has always 
to h^ found, fetched out of hiding, so strongly had 
the notion of the latent presence of fire in water 
and plants taken hold of men's fancy. The finder 
who is most frequently named is Matarishvan, a 
being whose nature is not explained, and who is said 
to have brought Agni " from heaven," " from the 
gods, very far away," and to have given him, " as a 
gift," to the Bhrigus, an equally mysterious race, 
nearly connected with humanity, however, as they, 
in their turn, after again concealing him in the wood, 
brought him forth and gave him to men — or to 
Manu, apparently the first man, whose name stands 
for the entire race ; which can only mean that the 
illustrious priestly race of the Bhrigus claimed that 
their ancestors taught men to " bring forth," i. e., 
kindle fire by friction. As Matarishvan is certainly 
the lightning (" Agni is manifested to him the very 
moment he is born in the highest heaven "),this very 
coherent if incomplete story is not at all spoiled by 
the fact that Agni is himself repeatedly called by 
that name. It is more confusing to find that, once 
in a while, he is spoken of as being found without 
Matarishvan's assistance. For instance : " The wise 
Bhrigus followed him, the hidden one, as one hastens 
after cattle that has strayed ; they found him in the 
waters and placed him in the homes of men." But 
then philology by a careful comparative study of the 
name and the large family of its kindred or derived 
words in the Aryan languages, both ancient and of 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 65 

later formation, has proved that the mythical Bhrigus 
had something to do with such things as " flame " 
and " blaze," if not with the lightning itself. The 
affinity strikes us still more clearly when we are told 
that " Atharvan drew Agni forth, by friction, out 
of the blue lotus-blossom" (a not unusual. poetical 
name for the vault of heaven), since the name at 
once suggests a fire-priest, being identical with that 
of the Eranian priests of Atar,' besides being, prob- 
ably, one of the oldest names for Lightning itself, 
not to mention the Sanskrit words athare, " flame," 
and atharyu, " blazing," a by-word of Agni.^ As 
there was a class of priests called Atharvans, — those 
specially appointed to the care of the different fires 
at great sacrifices, — this is another instance of the 
connection claimed by classes or families of men with 
semi-mythical progenitors. The Angiras, another 
highly reverenced family of hereditary priests and 
Rishis, are also mentioned in the Rig-Veda as having 
first kindled Agni. And "Angiras," in the singular, 
as the name of an individual, is now that of the 
human but half-mythical ancestor of the priestly 
race, and now unmistakably a name of Agni himself. 
The confusion produced by so many names is not as 
great as might appear at first sight, because one soon 
detects an underlying general idea, which is neither 
more nor less than the kinship between Agni and his 
mortal worshippers, indeed points to a belief in the 
celestial and fiery origin of the human race. 

' See Story of Media, etc., pp. 150-152. This is also the only trace 
in the Rig- Veda of the older Eranian name of Fire. 
' See ib„ p. 42. 



1 66 VEDIC INDIA. 

24. Truly, the association of ideas is very obvious. 
Of the heavenly birth and descent of Fire (which 
name, it must not be forgot, covers the conception 
and manifestations of Heat generally) no doubt was 
entertained, whether in its patent — obvious — form, as 
sunlight and lightning, or in its latent — hidden — form, 
as the elementary principle, concealed in the waters 
and the plants, and ever ready to escape therefrom. 
Now the warmth of the living body is a still clearer 
indication of the divine presence, and Agni may be 
said to have descended into men in the same way 
that he has descended into plants — not to mention 
another possibility : that of his passing into the 
human frame in the guise of the vegetable food it 
consumes, and then from generation to generation, 
as the "vital spark," which, being perpetuated by 
heredity, is not destroyed even by death. In this 
sense also the god is " immortal among mortals." 
Well may he be called, " he of many births." Numer- 
ous are the passages in which " community of race ' 
— kindred — is claimed with gods for men, explicitly, 
though in a general way : thus the verse *' We have 
in common with you, O gods, the quality of brothers 
in the mother's bosom " is fully explained by this 
other : " Heaven (Dyaus) is my father, who bore me ; 
my mother is this wide earth (Prithivi)." The oldest 
Rishis are styled " heaven-born," and one poet in- 
vokes them all by name (Angiras and Manu in the 
number), as " knowing his race " and the fact that 
'* it reaches up to the gods, its stock is among them." 
And if these claims and assertions seem too vague 
to be directly referred to Agni, no doubt is possible 
before the positive statement that he " gave birth to 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 67 

men " and " found a way for his descendants " and 
the direction to men " to invoke him as the first 
father." ' Marvellous to watch is this dim percep- 
tion of the unity of nature, the kinship of man with 
the entire universe (or at least our own solar system), 
so lately established by modern science, struggling 
into expression at that early age, with nothing but 
poetic intuition to guide. 

25. We have now learned to know Agni : ist, in 
heaven as the Sun ; 2d, in the atmosphere, as Light- 
ning ; 3d, on earth, as the Domestic, and 4th, as the 
Sacrificial, Fire. We have still to be introduced to 
the god in his fifth aspect, in which he plays an ex- 
ceedingly important part in the Hindu Arya's life : 
as consumer of corpses and guide of departed souls 
to the abodes of " the Fathers." For, unlike the 
Eranians, the Hindu did not hold that the impure 
contact of death could pollute the holy element, but 
on the contrary ascribed to the latter the power of 
purifying and sanctifying all things its flames con- 
sume or only touch. ^ Yet the " funereal Agni " was 

' This theme, of man's celestial and fiery origin, is treated with 
great erudition and convincing mastery by Abel Bergaigne, va his 
colossal work La Religion Vedique (vol. i., pp. 31^. chapter entitled 
Origine Celeste de la Race ILtcmaitte). 

* "What would the Eranians have said to the modern Brahmanic 
custom of floating corpses down the Ganges, to be carried out to the 
ocean by the sacred river's sanctifying waters ! This dreadful cus- 
tom is especially in force at Benares, the great city near the junction of 
the Ganges and Djumna, the holiest spot of all Brahmanic India. 
There the dying are actually carried to the river and plunged into it 
to breathe their last in the sacred waters, not only singly, but at cer- 
tain times in crowds. Of course all these practices were abomina- 
tions to the Parsis. See Story of Media, etc., pp. I24_y. 



1 68 VEDIC INDIA. 

<^kept separate from all other forms of fire, and was 
not allowed either on the sacrificial altar or on the 
hearth. 

26. There is an entire book of the Rig-Veda — the 
ninth — which, contrary to all the others, is devoted 
to the praises of only one deity — SOMA. Like Agni, 
with whom he is most intimately associated, Soma 
has many forms, and more than one dwelling-place ; 
like Agni, the place of his birth is not on earth ; like 
Agni, the form under which he first presents himself 
is an unmistakably material one : Agni is the fire and 
Soma is a plant. Only, whereas Agni, under this 
his earthly form, was put to many and widely differ- 
ing uses, the Soma plant had but one : an intoxi- 
cating beverage was prepared from it, which was 
offered at sacrifices, being partaken of by the wor- 
shippers and poured into the flame on the altar. And 
like the Fire-worship, the Soma-cult takes us back to 
the so-called Indo-Eranian period, the time before 
the separation of the two great sister-races, for we 
have seen the Soma, under the name of Haoma, 
play exactly the same part in the worship and sacri- 
fices of the Eranian followers of the Avesta. Indeed 
we probably have here one of the very few relics of 
an even earlier time — that of the undivided Aryan, 
or as it is sometimes called, " the Proto-Aryan 
period." ' For, as we noticed in its place, the Avesta 
bears evident traces of the use of the Haoma at the 
sacrifices being a concession made by Zarathushtra 

' Such is the opinion of most students of both sacred books, con- 
vincingly expressed in two special studies by that eminent and deep- 
seeing scholar, Windischmann. 




15. — DYING HINDU BROUGHT TO THE GANGES TO BREATHE HIS LAST 
IN THE WATERS OF THE SACRED RIVER. — (MODERN CUSTOM.) 



169 



I/O VEDIC INDIA. 

to old-established custom, not without subjecting it 
to a reforming and purifying process.' 

27. In India, as in Eran, the Soma is mountain- 
born.^ It is said that King Varuna, who placed the 
Sun in heaven and Fire in the waters, placed the 
Soma on the mountain. Like Fire, it is brought to 
men by superhuman agency : " The one," says a 
hymn already quoted, " was brought from heaven 
by Matarishvan, the other by the falcon from the 
mountain." The Soma used in India certainly grew 
on mountains, probably in the Himalayan highlands 
of Kashmir. It is certain that Aryan tribes dwelt 
in this land of tall summits and deep valleys in very 
early times — probably earlier than that when the 
Rig-hymns were ordered and collected, or the al- 
ready complicated official ritual which they mostly 
embody was rigidly instituted. From numerous in- 
dications scattered through the hymns, it appears 
probable that this was the earliest seat of the Soma 
worship known to the Aryan Hindus, whence it 
may have spread geographically with the race it- 
self, and that, as the plant did not grow in the lower 
and hotter regions, the aridity of some parts disa- 
greeing with it as much as the steam-laden sultriness 
of others, they continued to get " from the moun- 
tains " the immense quantities needed for the con- 
sumption of the gradually widening and increasing 

' See Story of Media^ etc., pp. 118— 121. 

' It should not be forgotten, however, that it can hardly be the 
identical plant. Scholars are pretty well agreed that the Aryan 
sacrificial liquor, though retaining the same name, may — or indeed 
must — have been prepared from different plants in the different lands 
where Aryas settled. 



THE OLDER GODS. 171 

Aryan settlements. A regular trade was carried on 
with the Soma plant, and the traders belonged to 
mountain tribes who were not Aryan, and, therefore, 
irreverently handled their sacred ware like any other 
merchandise, bargaining and haggling over it. This 
is evidently the reason why Soma-traders were con- 
sidered a contemptible class ; so much so that, when 
customs hardened into laws, they were included in 
the list — comprising criminals of all sorts, breakers 
of caste and other social laws, followers of low pro- 
fessions, as usurers, actors, etc. — of those who are 
forbidden to pollute sacrifices by their presence. To 
an Aryan Hindu, the man who owned the Soma 
and did not press it was a hopeless reprobate. In 
fact he divided mankind into " pressers " and " not 
pressers," the latter word being synonymous with 
"enemy" and "godless barbarians." They were 
probably itinerant traders, and the bargain was con- 
cluded according to a strictly prescribed ceremonial, 
the details of which seem singularly absurd and gro- 
tesque, until one learns that they had a symbolical 
meaning. The price (probably for a given quantity, 
though that is not mentioned) is a cow — light-col- 
ored, or, more precisely, reddish-brown, with light- 
brown eyes, in allusion to the ruddy or " golden " 
color of the plant — which must not be tied, nor 
pulled by the ear — i. e., not handled roughly. 

28. The Soma used in India is thought to be the 
Asclepia acida or Sarcostemina vimmale, a plant of 
the family of milk-weeds. It is described as having 
hanging boughs, bare of leaves along the stalks, of 
light, ruddy color (" golden"), with knotty joints, 



1/2 



VEDIC INDIA. 



containing, in a fibrous, cane-like outer rind, an 
abundance of millsiy, acid, and slightly astringent sap 
or juice. It is this juice whicli, duly pressed out, 




l6. — THE SOMA PLANT. 



mixed with other ingredients, and fermented, yields 
the intoxicating sacrificial beverage. The process — 
the most sacred and mystic act of the Vedic and 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 73 

Brahmanic liturgy — is alluded to in the Rig-Veda 
innumerable times, but in such fanciful and often 
enigmatical ways that we might be puzzled to recon- 
struct it, had we not in some of the Bramanas most 
precise directions, amounting to a thorough and de- 
tailed description of the operation. Though pages 
might easily be written on the subject, the following 
brief description after Windischmann must sufifice, 
as it is both graphic and comprehensive : 

"... The plant, plucked up by the roots, collected by moonlight 
on the mountains, is carried on a car drawn by two goats to the place 
of sacrifice, where a spot covered with grass and twigs is prepared,^ 
crushed between stones by the priests^ ; and is then thrown, stalks as 
well as juice, sprinkled with water, into a sieve of loose woollen 
weave, whence, after the whole had been further pressed by the 
hand, the juice trickles into a vessel or kettle which is placed 
beneath.^ The fluid is then mixed with sweet milk and sour milk, 
or curds, with wheaten and other flour, and brought into a state of 
fermentation ; it is then offered thrice a day and partaken of by the 
Brahmans. ... It was unquestionably the greatest and holiest offer- 
ing of the ancient Indian worship. . . . The gods drink the offered 
beverage ; they long for it ; they are nourished by it and thrown into 
a joyous intoxication. . . . The beverage is divine, it purifies, it is 
a water of life, gives health and immortality, prepares the way to 
heaven, destroys enemies," etc. 

^ The vedi, made of the famous kiisha grass, and called ' ' the seat 
of the gods," for whom it was prepared, and who were supposed in- 
visibly to occupy it, when they came to receive the sacrifice offered 
them, on being formally invited thereto. It was therefore meet that 
the Soma should be laid on this consecrated spot before the ceremony 
of pressing began. 

^ A mortar is also mentioned in the Rig- Veda, but rarely. As a 
mortar was used in the preparation of the Eranian Haoma {Sto7y of 
Media, etc., pp. 118-121), this was very probably the older custom, a 
relic of the forgotten Indo-Eranian period. 

' These vessels were, very appropriately, made of the sacred 
ashvattha-wood ( Ficus religiosa). 



174 VEDIC IN-DIA. 

The fieriness of the drink, its exhilarating and in- 
spiriting properties are especially expatiated upon. 
The chosen few who partook of it — few, for besides 
the ofificiating priests, only those were allowed a 
taste who could show that they had provisions 
enough stored up to last them three years — give 
most vivid expression to the state of exaltation, of 
intensified vitality, which raises them above the level 
of humanity. Some such effusions are neither more 
nor less than bragging; for instance (X., 119): 

I. I think to myself : I must get a cow ; I must get a horse : 
have I been drinking Soma? — 2. The beverages carry me along like 
impetuous winds : have I, etc. — 3. They carry me along as fleet 
horses a chariot : have I, etc. — 4. The hymn has come to me as a 
cow to her beloved calf : have I, etc. — 5. I turn my song over in my 
heart as a carpenter fashions a chariot : have I, etc. . . . — 7. The 
five tribes seem to me as nothing : have I, etc. — 8. One half of me is 
greater than both worlds : have I, etc. — 9. My greatness reaches be- 
yond the heavens and this great earth : have I, etc. — 10. Shall I carry 
this earth hither or thither? Have I, etc. — 11. Shall I shatter this 
earth here or there? Have I, etc. — 12. One half of me is in the 
heavens and I have stretched the other down deep : have I, etc. — 
I am most great ; I reach up to the clouds : have I, etc. ' 

The effects of the exhilarating beverage are not 
always described in such exaggerated strains. The 
following passages, culled here and there, although 

' Until very lately this hymn was supposed to be spoken by the bat- 
tle-god Indra after quaffing the sacrificial liquor. A. Bergaigne 
shows that it comes much more appropriately from an exhilarated 
mortal. 

" We have drunk the Soma," exclaims another ; " we have become 
immortal, we have entered into light, we have known the gods. 
What can an enemy now do to us. or what can the malice of 
any mortal effect ? " 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 75 

enthusiastic, depict no abnormal condition of body 
or mind, but may be produced by the moderate and 
wholesome use of a rich stimulant : 

" He, the wise, has entered into me, who are simple." — " Make 
me burn as with fire, O Soma , . . . prolong our life as the sun 
renews the days each morning. . . . Our intelligence is excited by 
thee . . . thou hast descended into all our limbs. . . , Disease has 
fled, powerless . . . the powerful Soma has descended into vis and 
our days are lengthened." 

29. Through all this runs a consciousness of the 
presence of something divine in the liquor which can 
produce such wonderful effects in those who partake 
of it. And indeed, this liquor is only the earthly 
form of the celestial Soma, or, more correctly, it is a 
symbol of the celestial Soma, the god Soma. When 
the sacrificer, after pouring a small quantity of the 
sacred beverage into the flame on the altar, describes 
how the gods — especially the battle-god INDRA — ' 
quaff Soma by the pailful, by the barrel, and only 
then feel strengthened for their daily strife against 
the powers of evil, he certainly does not mean it liter- 
ally. There w, however, a divine liquor which gives 
the gods (the Powers of Nature) strength and immor- 
tality, without which they would lose their might, 
their eternal youth, their life even, without which 
the world — our world at least — would become barren 
and dead, and uninhabitable ; and that heavenly 
liquor, the veritable Amrita or drink of immortality, 
is — the rain, the dews, perhaps it were more correct 1 
to say, the moisture which is diffused through nature, 
exhilarating, vivifying, calling forth and fostering' 
life in all its forms. Of the gathering and flowing 



176 VEDIC INDIA. 

of this fountain of life — the amrita, the celestial 
Soma — the sacrificial process is an apt illustration : 
the skin on which the pressing stones are disposed is 
the cloud, and the stones themselves are the thun- 
derbolts ; the sieve is the sky, the liquor that falls 
through it in more or less abundant drops is the rain, 
and the large vessel or kettle into which they fall is 
the Samudra — the celestial sea that holds all the 
atmospheric waters. The likeness — the symbol — is 
never lost sight of. Nothing can be clearer than 
this invocation : " Drink exhilaration from the 
heavenly Soma, O Indra, drink it from the Soma 
which men press on earth." This identification of 
Soma with the waters and with plants accentuates 
very strongly his afifinity with Agni which we 
noticed from the start and — to make a long line of 
proof and argument as brief as our limited space 
commands — we may at once arrive at the conclusion 
that Soma, in this phase of the myth, is a form of 
Agni, in a word, is liquid fire. ' It is no wonder, 
therefore, that the two should be so constantly asso- 
ciated together and even invoked jointly in numbers 
of hymns specially addressed to them. 

30. But even the celestial Soma, the drink that in- 
vigorates the gods and gives them eternal youth and 
immortality, — in short, the amrita — cannot rationally 

' We saw that the fiery or vital principle is conveyed into the heart 
of plants, and into the human frame, by water. For exhaustive stud- 
ies on this, as it may be called, most sacred mystery of the Aryan 
faith, see A. Kuhn, The Dcsceiit of Fire and the Celestial Beverage ; 
A. Bergaigne, the chapters on Agni and Soma in La Religion 
Vediqjie ; and riillel:)randt, J'edisehe Mythologie, vol. i. 



The older cods. 177 

have been the god Soma. Water, moisture, could 
not possibly, at any time, be thought of as a person. 
This water, this moisture, must be produced, or at 
least held in keeping, — then given out, distributed, 
by a being, a Power that could be imagined as a per- 
son, and when we find that power, we have the god. 
The parallelism between Soma and Agni which we 
traced throughout this study points to the a priori 
conclusion that, Agni being the Sun, Soma must be 
the Moon, and the fact instantly occurs to us that in 
the mythology of the post-vedic, so-called "epic" 
or "classical," period, down to our own day. Soma 
has always been and is the moon. Very peculiar 
and consistently developed are the later Brahmanical 
theories about the moon as expounded in the Pura- 
nas, but always hinging on this one fundamental 
fact, that the moon is the reservoir of anirita, the 
drink of the gods, and both in these and the poeti- 
cal works it has a number of epithets alluding to 
this. During the light part of the month (while the 
moon is visible), the gods drink from it — and it swells 
the more as they drink — the sweet amrita which 
makes them immortal. During the dark half of the 
month (while the moon is invisible), the PiTRIS — the 
spirits of the dead — drink from it, when it gradually 
decreases. Its beams are woven of cool watery 
atoms which penetrate into the plants, refresh and 
vivify them. Another has it the other way ; the 
gods approach the moon at its full, and the dead on 
the night it is new. The same in the Upanishads, 
which are earlier than the Puranas. " The Moon is 
King Soma, the food of the gods." The same, more 



178 VEDIC INDIA. 

frequently, more insistently, in the Shatapatha- 
Brahmana, the most important of all. " This 
King Soma, the food of the gods, is the Moon. 
. . . When it decreases, then they feed on it." 
"... The Seasons are King Soma's royal broth- 
ers, just as a man has brothers." Whose brothers 
can the seasons be but the moon-god's? 

31. And so it turns out that moon-worship occu- 
pies a prominent place in the Aryan religion, and 
that the ninth book of the collection is exclusively 
devoted to this worship, the ritual of which is specially 
contained in the Sama-Veda. This book, and for that 
matter, the numerous Soma-hymns scattered in the 
other books of the Rig, teem with allusions too trans- 
parent and direct to need explanation, provided the 
lunar nature of the deity they celebrate is thor- 
oughly comprehended, whereas they would be hard 
to make even tolerable sense of, even allowing most 
amply for archaic mannerisms of thought and ima- 
gery, under the supposition that the god Soma is o)tly 
the sacrificial beverage of Aryan worship or the 
celestial beverage of the gods — the vivifying mois- 
ture diffused through the universe. Some of the 
similes are very graceful and pretty. Soma is a 
well of sweetness in the midst of the sky ; a golden 
drop hung up in the heavens ; a bowl of ambrosia 
{amrita), nay, an ocean {samudrd) of the drink of 
gods. Soma is a wise god, for does he not know 
the times and the seasons, bring round the months, 
and fix the days and hours for the rites, and the 
prayers, and the sacrifices which are the gods' due ? 
Soma also is a warrior god, vigorous and well armed, 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 79 

equipped for battle against the demons and monsters 
who people the " dark forest "—night, and whom he 
dispels, and also for the defence of the precious 
spring of life which he has in his keeping, and which 
evil beings, hostile to the- Devas — the Asuras — are 
ever on the watch to steal. To whom but the moon 
could lines like the following apply : " Soma stands 
above all the worlds, similar to the divine Surya," 
or, " he has clothed himself in the radiance of the 
Sun, and, full of wisdom, surveys the races ? " Lastly 
there is a myth in which Soma is married to Surya, 
the Sun-maiden, and the very hymn (X., 85) which 
tells this myth with unusual length of detail and 
circumstance, begins with this passage, the most 
explicit and decisive of all, which indeed sums up in 
few words the results to which we have laboriously 
worked our way : 

" Through the Law [Rita] the earth stands firm, the heavens 
and the Sun, through the Law the Adityas stand, and Soma stands 
in the sky. . . . Soma is placed in the midst of these stars. 

*' When they crush the plant, he who drinks regards it as Soma. 
Of him whom the priests regard as Soma, no one drinks. 

" Protected by those who shelter thee and preserved by thy guar- 
dians, thou, Soma, hearest the sound of the crushing-stones ; btit no 
earthly being tastes thee. 

" When the gods drink thee, O god, thou increasest again. . . ." 

It is impossible more fully to realize the symbolism 
of the Soma sacrifice. Yet there is no lack of pas- 
sages which as plainly express the conception that 
the god descends personally into the plant, giving 
up his own body and limbs to be broken for the good 
of men and gods, and that a mysterious communion 
is established between the god and his worshipper, 



l8o VEDIC INDIA. 

who has tasted the sacred drink, that this drink is 
part of the divine substance. This thread of mysti- 
cism runs through the whole Rig-Veda : We have 
tasted Soma, — the god has descended into us, — we 
have become like unto the gods — immortal life is 
ours. 

32, The following beautiful prayer, a poetical 
gem of purest water, may be considered as the crown- 
ing expression of the Aryan Soma-worship in its 
noblest, most spiritual form (IX., 113). 

"Where there is eternal light, in the world where the su7i is 
placed, in that immortal, imperishable world place me, O Soma! 

" Where the son of Vivasvat reigns as King, where the secret place 
of heaven is, where these mighty waters are, there make me im- 
mortal ! 

"Where life is free, in the third heaven of heavens, where the 
worlds are radiant, there make me immortal ! 

"Where wishes and desires are, where the bowl of the bright 
Soma is, where there is food and rejoicing, there make me im- 
mortal ! 

"Where there is happiness and delight, where joy and pleasure 
reside, where the desires of our desire are attained, there make me 
immortal ! " ' 

There is not one line here, not one image that 
offers the least dif^culty to interpretation if the iden- 
tity of Soma and the Moon be accepted as the basis 
thereof — as there is not one that does not present 
almost insuperable difficulty on any other supposi- 
tion. The " bowl of the bright Soma," the " radiant 
worlds " (the stars), the world of " eternal light," of 
" the mighty waters " — how beautiful and how self- 
evident, when we know that the moon is the abode 

' Translated by Max Miiller. 



THE OLDER GODS. l8l 

of the dead who partake of its " honeyed sweetness," 
even as the gods and, Hke the gods, quaff length of 
days in the draught. There is, however, one line in 
this passage which introduces us to two new mythi- 
cal persons : Vivasvat and his son. 

33. This son is Yama, whom we have already 
learned to know in the Avesta as YiMA, SON OF 
ViVANHVANT,' but in how altered a garb ! The Rig- 
Veda knows very little about Vivasvat except his 
name and that he is Yama's father ; yet that he had 
been a god and had the power of one is proved by 
such prayers as the following, addressed to him : 
" May the shaft of Vivasvat, the poisoned arrow, not 
strike us before we are old ! " " May Vivasvat grant 
us immortality. Let death go its way and immor- 
tality come. May he protect our people to their old 
age." But this is only a faint trace, an obliterated 
memory of the position he must have occupied in a 
remote Indo-Eranian past, for in the Avesta, con- 
sistently with the anti-polytheistic tendency of the 
creed, Vivanhvant is a mere mortal man, a saintly 
priest, the first who offered a Haoma sacrifice, while 
his son Yima is also a mortal, the first king, the 
ruler of a golden age.^ But if the father has lost 
ground in India, the son, Yama, fills one of the 
most prominent and picturesque positions in the 
Vedic pantheon, as the king of the dead, the mild 
ruler of an Elysium-like abode where the shades of 

' See Story of Media, etc., pp. 89-94. 

^ The name, which means " the Luminous," has been taken to indi- 
cate a sun-god, and the conclusion is borne out by the entire Brah- 
mana-literature. See on this question, however, ch. vii. 



1 82 VEDIC INDIA. 

the PiTRIS (the departed fathers of the living, an- 
swering the Avestan Fravashis),' lead a happy, 
dreamy existence. 

34. The bare facts are these : Yama was the first 
to die and we all follow him to the world which he 
was the first to enter, and where, therefore, he as- 
sumed the part of host, receiving those that joined 
him as they came, and naturally becoming their king 
and ruler. He has messengers who roam the world 
spying out those who are to die, and whom they 
drive or escort to his realm. These messengers, 
generally two in number, most frequently take the 
shape of dogs of weird and fantastic appearance, 
and are probably meant to personify the morning 
and evening twilight — a most apt poetical image, 
since it can certainly be said that each morning 
and evening brings some recruits from the living 
world to that of the dead. It is remarkable that 
the most explicit and pithy text is contained in the 
Atharva-Veda : 

" Him who first of mortals died, who first went to that world, the 
gatherer of men — King Yama, son of Vivasvat, honor ye with an 
oblation." 

" Death is Yama's wise messenger." A wonderful 
thought, wonderfully expressed, which we also find 
in the Atharva-Veda. Birds of evil omen also, are 
mentioned in the Rig as Yama's messengers, and 
one poet prays that the thing which such a bird an- 
nounces with its cry may not come to pass. The 
dogs are called Sarameya or children of SaramA, 
' Story of Media, etc., pp. 83-84, 154. 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 83 

and described as spotted, broad-snouted, four-eyed, 
and Yama is entreated to bid them protect the 
guests they bring him on the road/ 

35. The world over which Yama rules is not repul- 
sive, dark, or in any way dread-inspiring, being 
situated, as we have seen, in the highest heaven, in 
the sphere of the sun, in the midst of radiant worlds, 
and no idea of judgment or punishment attaches to 
it. In the Rig-Veda Yama is the king of the dead, 
not as yet their judge and chastiser. That came 
later, and in the Brahmanical literature of the clas- 
sical period Yama appears stripped of all gracious 
features and tricked out in all the cheap horrors of 
the vulgar devil. How different from the mild, 
benignant deity, to whose gentle rule the earlier 
Aryan Hindus lovingly, trustfully committed their 
departed dear ones ! "^ 

36. The question naturally arises : what natural 
phenomenon originally was disguised under the 
myth of Yama Vaivasvata? The answer as natu- 
rally suggests itself : the setting sun, for that is one 
of the scenes in the grand drama of nature which 
always most forcibly suggested the belief and hope 
in a future life." And in the poetical language of 
early myth-makers, bristling with bold metaphor, the 
setting sun can very well be said to be the child 
of the morning sun (Vivasvat). But then it is by 

* See Story of Media, etc., pp. 93, 94 {Sagdtd ceremony), and p. 
165 (the dogs guarding the Chinvat Bridge). 

^ See, for details and texts, ch. ix., Early Culture, in connection 
with the Vedic funeral rites. 

^ See Story of Chaldea, pp. 337-339. 



184 VEDIC INDIA. 

no means sure, as will be seen/ that Vivasvat was 
always the sun, and quite recently a school of 
^X interpreters has arisen who would identify Yama, 
like Soma, with the Moon. ^ It cannot be denied 
that the arguments they bring in favor of this 
solution carry great weight. They point out, 
among other things, that the " seat of Yama " is 
avowedly in the "third heaven," in "its most secret 
(/. e., remotest) place," and that the setting sun can- 
not be said to occupy that position ; that the moon 
easily could appear to the unscientific eye of the 
early myth-makers as a smaller, younger sun — the 
child of the sun, who dies (disappears) after running 
his course ; that the two, with the inconsistency so 
characteristic of myths, which delight in presenting 
the same divine beings under different aspects, to 
place them in different mutual relations, might just 
as easily have appealed to the imagination as twins 
— as in point of fact they have been considered 
by most ancient peoples, and that the very name 
"Yama" is a word signifying "twin." Yama is 
often spoken of as having been the first man, the 
\ progenitor of the human race. But that honor be- 
longs to another son of Vivasvat — Manu (J. e., Man), 
and was mistakenly transferred to Yama, on the 
strength of an imperfect argument, namely, that he 
who was the first to die must have been the first man 
who lived. But Yama is nowhere styled " the first 

* In ch. vii. 

^ A. Hillebrandt argues the point at great length, and decides it in 
this sense, in the first volume of his Vedic Mythology, already men- 
tioned. 



THE OLDER GODS. 1 85 

of men," only " the first oimortahr Now the word 
" mortal " (martya) is very frequently used to denote 
" man " ; but two other words — inanusJiya and jana 
occur quite as frequently ' ; yet neither is used when 
Yama is spoken of. The persistency with which he 
is called the first of martyas, " mortals," is scarcely 
accidental. Not man alone is mortal in the concep- 
tion of ancient myth-making peoples : the gods 
themselves would die did they not continually renew 
their life and vigor by draughts of the divine Soma, 
the water of youth and immortality ; the sun dies 
when it sets, or faints at the numbing touch of win- 
ter ; the moon dies when, after waning away before 
our eyes, it disappears. True, after death comes 
resurrection ; but that does not belong here. We 
must be content with establishing the fact that 
Yama is invariably styled the " first of mortals who 
died," not " the first of mortal menr 

37. Another Vedic deity who can be traced with 
certainty to a pre-Eranian (or Proto-Aryan) past 
is Vayu or Vata, the Wind. Not the violent 
storm-wind, but the wholesome, cooling breeze, that 
clears the atmosphere, purifies the air, brings health 
and life to men and animals prostrated by heat. 
Vayu holds a modest place in the Rig- Veda. Few 
hymns are addressed to him alone, but he is fre- 
quently joined with other gods, and always men- 

' It is impossible not to admire the ingenious and pithy names by 
which those who spoke the ancient Sanskrit tongue designated the 
human race: martya, "the mortal"; manushya, " the thinking " 
(the root vian being the same as that of viejis, mind') ; Jana, " the 
begotten," " the born " (same root as \n gens, genus, generate, etc.). 



1 86 VEDIC INDIA. 

tioned with respect and gratitude. He is a " Son of 
Heaven " (Dyaus), and not only is he invited to par- 
take of the Soma libations, but when he comes with 
other gods, the first drink is his by right.' The fol- 
lowing short hymn (X., i68) shows the high esteem 
in which this unobtrusive deity was held and how 
sensitively alive the fancy of those ancient poets was 
to the picturesque and the mysterious — also how a 
thing may strike in the same way spirits separated 
by ages and continents. 

' ' I celebrate Vata's great chariot : it comes rending the air, with 
noise of thunder. It touches the sky as it goes and makes it ruddy, 
whirling up the dust on the earth. — The flying gusts rush after it, — 
as maidens to a festival . . . . — As he flies along on airy paths, Vata 
never rests on any day .... For what place was he born ? and 
from whence came he, — the vital breath of gods, the world's great 
offspring? The god, where'er he will, moves at his pleasure; his 
rushing sound we hear, — his form was never seen. ^ . . ." 

38. With this god we close the cycle of Vedic gods 
— Dyaus, Varuna, Mitra, Agni, Soma, Yama, Vayu 
— whom we can trace with absolute certainty to an 
Indo-Eranian past and identify with corresponding 
divine beings in the Avesta. Further researches no 

* There is, in one of the Brahmanas, a story invented to account 
for this privilege. It tells how several gods once ran a race for the 
first drink of Soma, and Vayu (naturally !) won. This is the way in 
which the Brahmanas dispose of all obscure or puzzling points — by 
stories made up to explain them. The result is generally obscurity 
doubly intensified, confusion inextricable, often sickening absurdities, 
and someWra&i, — gems of philosophy and poetry. 

^ "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth." — 
St. John, iii., 8. 



TffE OLDER GODS. 1 8/ 

doubt will bring to light more affinities, more like- 
nesses, — as indeed not a few have already been 
hinted at. But suggestions, conjectures, can find no 
place in works the object of which is to place be- 
fore the larger public — the uninitiated laymen of 
science — the results actually achieved, the conquests 
that may be considered final. The divine person- 
ages into whose exalted circle we shall now step 
are of Indian growth, bear the unmistakable im- 
press of the land and conditions of life which the 
migrating Aryas found on the hither side of the 
Himalaya and the Indus. 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V. 
THE CHURNING OF THE AMRITA. 

The accompanying illustration represents one of 
the most famous legends told in the Mahabharata 
and some of the Puranas, and is a good specimen of 
the literalness with which Indian art sets to work to 
reproduce the details of a mythical story, just as 
the legend itself is a fair sample of what the learned 
Brahmanic poetry of the classic or epic ages made of 
the simple and transparent myths of Vedic times. 
We have just admired and fully explained the myth 
of the amrita, the food of the gods, of which the 
sacred Soma-drink is the earthly imitation. The 
Brahman poets amplified it into a story, given with 
varying details in different versions, but of which the 
main features are the following : 



:55 VEDIC INDIA. 

The devas were at war with the asuras (the evil 
demons), who repeatedly conquered them, so that 
they lost heart, and were fain to ask the assistance 
of Vishnu, the god to whom later theology ascribed 
the mission of general adviser to the gods and pre- 
server to them and the created worlds. Vishnu 
promised- them that their strength should be restored 
if they would do as he would direct. First they 
must collect specimens of all the plants and herbs 
that grow in the world and cast them into the Sea 
of Milk, then they must churn that sea, and they 
would thus obtain the Amrita, the drink of strength 
and immortality. But as the labor would be very 
great, he advised them to suspend hostilities with 
the Asuras and invite them to join in the work: 
" I will take care," he said, " your foes shall share 
your toil but not partake in its reward." The 
Asuras readily took the bait and worked with all 
their might. When the herbs were thrown in, the 
mountain Mandara was taken for a churning stick 
(praviantJia), and the King of Serpents, VAsUKI — 
others say Shesh or Sheshna — allowed himself to 
be used as the rope to twirl the stick. So all pulled 
with a will, the devas on one side, the Asuras on the 
other, while Vishnu himself, taking the form of a 
tortoise, took the mountain on his back to steady it. 
Great was the tumult that ensued. The milky 
waves rose and tossed and foamed, as though lashed 
by a mighty storm. Then all sorts of rare, wonder- 
ful, and useful things and beings began to emerge 
from the heaving bosom of that mysterious deep. 
First rose from them the sacred Cow, then in succes- 




17- — the churning of the amrita. 
(vishnu's third avatar or incarnation — the " kurma " or tortoise 

avatar). 



190 



VEDIC INDIA. 



sion the divine many-headed horse, the elephant, a 
troop of Apsaras (water-maidens); the goddess of 
beauty appeared, seated on a lotus blossom ; deadly 
poison also was churned out of the waters ; Vasuki 
claimed that as his perquisite, to be given to his ser- 
pents. According to some versions the four Vedas 
also came out of that memorable churning. But on 
our picture they seem to be represented as one of 
the divine beings who do the churning — as a person 
with four heads and four arms, with a book in one 
hand. Last of all came forth the physician of the 
gods, radiant, triumphant, bearing aloft the cup with 
the precious beverage. Both devas and asuras made 
a rush for it and there ensued a raging battle. But 
the devas had managed to secure the first draught, 
and being fully invigorated by it, had no difficulty 
in beating off their late allies and hurling them into 
the dark abysses. 



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CHAPTER VI. 



THE RIG-VEDA 



THE STORM-MYTH — THE SUN-AND- 
DAWN MYTH. 



1. We already know that the main, most vital 
fact of India's physical life, that on which it hinges 
for good or for evil, is the timely arrival and benefi- 
cent violence of the southwestern monsoon, or, as 
the unscientific would say, the spring thunderstorms. 
This is what may be poetically termed the great 
atmospheric drama, with its incidents of war and 
conquest, its armies and its heroes. Here the 
imagination of the old Aryas of the Seven Rivers, 
with their characteristic naturalistic tendencies, 
revelled unstinted. Here, in the Middle-Region — 
antdriksha — was Cloudland, which men watched day 
by day as the familiar but never palling scenes were 
enacted over and over again, — where Indra — the 
Thunderer — was king, and the Maruts — the Storm- 
winds — were his friends and helpers ; where the 
clouds were sometimes actors and sometimes 
scenery, where the precious Cows were fought for, 
for whose milk the long-suffering earth hungers and 
thirsts. 

2. And here we are brought to the root of that 

191 



192 VEDIC INDIA. 

strange and apparently ineradicable superstition of 
Aryan India — thesacredness of the Cow. It has been 
suggested as one of the reasons, that the cow is the 
distinctive animal of Aryan life. For, absolutely 
unfitted by nature for the hardships of a nomadic 
existence, or for the torrid heat of the open steppe, 
it needs the protection of forest glades, the coolness 
of streams, the rest and sweetness of meadows 
exactly suiting the farming stage of culture which 
immediately follows on the nomadic and precedes or 
co-exists with the city-building stage,' since its wants 
and the care it demands are such as can be supplied 
only under favorable and settled conditions of life, 
even though still very primitive. And in that stage 
— the first in which the Aryan race appears to the 
historical vision — we can scarcely realize what a won- 
derful, god-given, all-sufficient treasure this gentle, 
homely, patient companion must have seemed to a 
people broken up into families or small clans, wholly 
dependent each on its own dairy and patch of till- 
age. The sweetest, most wholesome of foods flowed 
from her udder, easily transformed into the butter 
which, melted and clarified, fed the sacred flame on 
the home-altar, while her mate, the fiery bullock, 
supplied meat for the burnt-offering, or, tamed and 
trained, became the obedient laboring steer. There 
were no bounds to the gratitude and reverence, the 
loving care they paid this living embodiment of a 
kindly providence, until they came to consider the 
cow as something holy and half divine. It became 

' See Story of Chaldea, ch. i., " The Four Stages of Culture," 
especially pp. 123-125. 



THE STORM-MYTH. 1 93 

to them the sacred animal, the object of almost wor- 
ship, which it remains to this day among their 
descendants in India. 

3. To this sacredness, founded on such homely, 
positive grounds, a more imaginative reverence was 
added by the active poetical fancy which filled the 
world with the mythical creations that were to beg- 
gar the invention of all coming ages. The real, live, 
earthly cow had her glorified double in the heavens, 
or, rather, the Middle-Region, antdriksha ; there 
roam the herds of dark, light, or dappled cloud-kine, 
whose udder pours down their pure sweet milk, 
the rain, in life-giving showers, for men and animals, 
and plants. And, as though to show how in- 
timate the connection between the two, they both — 
the cloud and the cow — have the same name — Go, — 
and that again is a root expressive of motion, walk- 
ing. The clouds moving across the sky may first 
have suggested a likeness to kine moving across the 
pasture ; with a little observation the comparison 
completed itself. The heavenly pastures and the 
heavenly herds, and, consequently, the gods as 
heavenly herdsmen, just as the heavenly ocean with 
the cloud-ships, are standing mythical images, on 
which the poetry of all times has rung endless 
changes. In fact, the most cursory perusal of the 
Rig-Veda places the Middle-Region before us as a 
sort of mirror-world, showing an exact reflection, only 
magnified and glorified, of this lower world, with all 
its doings, relations, and conditions. This applies 
to all the incidents of what may be called the atmos- 
pheric drama, a perfect counterpart of the wars or 

13 



194 VEDIC INDIA. 

perhaps rather the tribal raids of earth, and which, 
Hke the latter, takes the homely form of a conflict 
for the possession of cattle, or of women and maid- 
ens, these being the two staple articles of intertribal 
booty, the standing objects of mutual covetousness 
and clan feuds. 

" The phenomena of thunder and lightning," remarks Mr. Muir in 
his study on Indra, "almost inevitably suggest the idea of a con- 
flict between opposing forces ; even we ourselves, in our more pro- 
saic age, often speak of the war or strife of the elements. The other 
appearances of the sky, too, would afford abundant materials for 
poetical imagery. The worshipper would at one time transform the fan- 
tastic shapes of the clouds into the chariots and horses of his god, and 
at another time would seem to perceive in their piled-up masses the 
cities and castles which he was advancing to overthrow." ' 

Or mountains.' There is nothing a solid dark 
bank of clouds, with its broken outlines against the 
horizon, more resembles, and many a mariner long- 
ingly looking out for land has been deceived by this 
mirage of the sea. These castles, these mountains 
with their deep, dark caves, are the fastnesses 
wherein wicked robbers hide the stolen cows or 

' Muir's Original Smiskrit Texts, vol. v., p. 98. 

* Fdrvata (from a root meaning " to swell ") means both " cloud " 
and "mountain"; so '^ pur" means "fortress" and "cloud." 
Vedic Sanskrit has many more such homonyms, which, while strongly 
impressing us with the nearness to nature of the old poets and their 
fine sense of the picturesque resemblances between earth-land and 
cloud-land, have for us moderns the disadvantage that they actually 
blur the line between the two, and frequently render it almost im- 
possible to make out whether a given incident — such as storming of 
fortresses, hurling enemies down mountains and the like — is to be 
taken in a mythical or historical sense. They seem to us to have 
lived in both worlds and scarcely themselves to have known one from 
the other. 



THE STORM-MYTH. 1 95 

maidens, over whom the dragon cloud-fiend, Ahi, the 
Serpent, who loves to lie on the top of mountains, 
and the shaggy monster, Vritra, the Enfolder, keep 
watch, until the Thunderer's lightning spear pierces 
and tears them to pieces, while the castle walls or 
mountain sides burst open under the resonant blows 
of his fiery mace, and the captives come forth. 
" For " (if we may be permitted to quote from a 
former volume of our own) " there are clouds and 
clouds, and not all by any means bode or bring rain. 
If some generously pour down the precious, pure 
liquid which is life and drink to the parched, pining 
earth, others keep it back, wickedly hide it, swell 
and spread with the treasure they cover and enclose, 
and will not give it up until pierced and torn asunder 
by the lightning spear of the angry thunder-god." ' 
And those whose ill-fortune it has been to live 
through a genuine drought in a semi-tropical clime, 
will heartily endorse the remark that nothing can be 
more disheartening, when every breathing and grow- 
ing thing, nay, the inanimate soil itself, with its gray, 
dusty, rifted surface, is panting and gaping for rain 
to bring moisture and coolness, than to see the clouds 
collecting and floating across the sky day after day 
without discharging their contents. ^ 

^ See Story of Media, Babylon, and Persia, pp. 44-47. 

^ See Muir, vol. v., p. 98. The author's personal experience in- 
cludes several " dry spells " in Central Italy, and a real, unmitigated 
two years' drought in Texas — the most terrible in fifty-nine years. 
Aggravating as the relentless blue sky was on the former occasions, 
it was nothing to the exasperation of gazing daily on a cloudy, some- 
times an overcast, sky, knowing that not a drop would fall from it. 
The feeling was distinctly one of animosity against some invisible, 
but sentient and malicious power. 



ig6 VEDIC INDIA. 

And now that we clearly understand what may be 
called the plot of the drama — very simple and in 
substance always the same — we may introduce the 
actors and let the various scenes unfold themselves, 
keeping, as we did in the preceding chapter, to the 
only really forcible and impressive method : that of 
letting the ancient poets speak, i. e., quoting as 
much as possible from the Rig-Veda itself. 

4. It is generally understood that Vedic worship 
knew of no temples or images of its gods, and this 
must of course apply to Indra, the king of the Mid- 
dle-Region — him who may well be termed the 
champion-god of Aryan India.' Yet one is almost 
tempted to doubt the fact in his case and that of 
his faithful comrades and escort the Maruts — the 
Storm-Winds* — who ride forth to battle with him, an 
eager, rushing troop — so realistic and complete are 
the descriptions of their personal appearance, 
strength, and warlike equipment, down to the small- 
est details. Indra is shown us borne on a shining 
chariot, a golden whip in his hand, the thunderbolt 
in his arm, helmeted with gold, and not only are his 
long, strong arms spoken of, and the beauty of his 
nose and ruddy cheeks, but we are told how his 

' This name has been the theme of much and vigorous philological 
discussion. The most convincing explanation, because the simplest 
and most pertinent, is that Vi'hich connects it with the root IND — 
"sap, drop," — a root vi^hich we iind again in Sindhu-Indus(" river") 
It is ver}'- plain that " India " is the land of Indra and the Indus. 

* Literally "the Smashers," "Grinders," as this is one of the 
meanings contained in that extremely serviceable and prolific root 
MAR. — See Max Midler's Science of Language, Second Series, pp. 
332^. (New York Edition, Scribner, 1S75). 



THE STORM-MYTH. 1 97 

golden beard is violently agitated by the swift 
motion, as he guides his mettlesome steeds and hurls 
his bolts around. Again the Maruts. Not much is 
left to the imagination when they are presented to 
us as driving chariots borne along with the fury of 
boisterous winds by their swift tawny horses or 
dappled deer, and described as follows : 

" Spears rest upon your shoulders ; ye have anklets on your feet, 
golden ornaments on your breasts, ornaments on your ears, fiery 
lightnings in your hands, and golden helmets on your heads." 

Together with Indra they are bidden by Agni, the 
priest-messenger, to the sacrificer's banquet ; together 
they quaff huge quantities of the invigorating soma, 
and together rush to do battle against Vritra, whom 
they helped Indra to overcome, to pierce through 
and through, to cut to pieces, till his remains strew 
the mountain side, and the waters which he impris- 
oned leap merrily forth, and roll and tumble and 
pour down on both worlds. Brush and color could 
hardly give a more vivid picture — and for that 
picture Indian warrior kings and their gorgeously 
arrayed body-guards have surely s^at. It is anthro- 
pomorphism running riot. The question is not : how 
did the hero of the Middle-Region become the war- 
god of men, the champion and protector of his Aryan 
and native worshippers ? but : how could he have 
helped becoming both ? 

5. Anthropomorphism, however, seldoms keeps 
long within such sober bounds — certainly not in 
India. In its tendency to bring the superhuman 
within the mind's ken, by clothing it in human. 



198 VEDIC INDIA. 

familiar garb, it but too easily slips into exaggera- 
tion, and, in exalting the object of worship, is apt to 
represent greatness by material size. Scarcely any 
of the Indra hymns, which are more numerous than 
those to any other deity, are free from this taint of 
fancy, or rather weakness of expression, to which, 
however, together with some images of the most 
grotesque grossness, we owe some of great poetical 
beauty. Let us pick out a few at random, as they 
occur scattered through the hymns. 

6. Nothing is more frequently impressed on the 
worshipper than Indra's physical immensity and 
strength. He is " so superior to men, heaven and 
earth do not suffice for his girdle," and " when he 
grasps the two boundless worlds, they are but a 
handful to him." " He contains all that exists as the 
tire of a wheel contains the spokes " ; indeed, " as 
the axle passes both wheels, so his greatness sur- 
passes both worlds " ; but, "not a hundred heavens 
and a hundred earths, with a thousand suns — no, 
not all created worlds could contain Jiiinr But it 
is Indra's soma-drinking capacities which inspire the 
poets with the most extravagant absurdities ; he is 
said to drink it in pailfuls — tubfuls — thirty lakes 
at a sitting ; he is invited to drink freely, like a 
thirsty stag, or a bull roaming in a waterless waste. 
The acme is reached when he is credited with two 
bellies, which are compared to two lakes, and which 
he is requested to fill — which he does with a will, 
if we are to believe the translator who reads a cer- 
tain verse as saying that Indra cannot wait for the 
soma to be drawn for him, but gulps down cask, fau- 



THE STORM-MYTH. 1 99 

cet, and all ' ; it is doubtless after an exploit of the 
kind that he is admiringly described as staggering 
about at the sacrificial feast, tottering like a boat on 
the waters — " soma in his belly, great might in his 
body, wisdom in his head, and lightning in his 
hand." It is in this " exhilarated " condition that the 
hero-god performs his most notable deeds and most 
brilliantly earns his highest title, that of Vritra- 
HAN — " Slayer of Vritra," the cloud-demon of 
Drought. The same idea re-appears in a spiritual- 
ized form in the hymns in which Soma the god is 
invoked jointly with Indra and both are besought 
for help against fiends or earthly foes, when they 
impartially share the credit and praise. In one place 
Soma is called "the soul of Indra." 

7. As the god of war on earth between men and 
men, Indra is not merely the Aryas' champion and 
helper in single battles, he is the leader of the Aryan 
eastward movement generally ; it is he who guides 
them from the Indus to the Yamuna, and makes 
their path one of conquest : " Look forward for us, 
O Indra, as a leader, and guide us onward towards 
greater riches. Take us safely across, lead us wisely 
and in safety." Nothing could mean more clearly : 
pushing eastward, crossing rivers, dislodging dasyus. 

8. It must be admitted that the goods which the 
Arya pleads for to Indra are always of the most ma- 
terial kind. When it is not rain or the dispersion of 
darkness, it is cows, horses, many sons healthy and 
strong, gold and riches of every kind, victory in war, 
and " the riches of the enemies." He is essentially 

' Mr. E. D. Perry of Columbia College. 



200 VEDtC INDIA. 

the creation of a rushing, active, coveting time — a 
/'storm and stress " period, — and his personaHty has 
jnone of the spiritual charm which radiates from such 
'contemplative conceptions as Varuna or Aditi, or 
the philosophical play of fancy which makes the 
elusive forms of Agni and Soma so truly divine. 
Still, there is something very touching and tender in 
the confiding familiarity with which he is addressed 
in some few passages, as in the following : 

" Come, O Indra, brother. . . . Here thy friends have lived 
from oldest time ; look now on thy later friends, and the youngest. 
. . . For thou w^ast our fathers' friend of old and willingly didst 
grant them their wishes. . . . We call on thee, who dost not 
make thy ear deaf to our voice, but hearest us from afar. . . . 
For thou, O gracious one, hast always been both father and mother 
to us . . . the most fatherly of fathers. 

" The old songs hasten to thee ever anew . . . like harnessed 
steeds, like kine that lick their young calves, like wives that fondle 
and cling to the stateliest of husbands. . . . O stay, go not from 
us, thou mighty one, when I offer thee the well-pressed soma. I take 
hold of thy robe, as a son of his father's robe, with my song. . . ." 

9. If we believe his worshippers, Indra certainly 
is not insensible to so much love and trust. The 
hymns abound in lists of the things he does for 
them and gives them : he threshes their foes as corn- 
sheaves on the threshing-floor; he comes to his 
friends with both hands full of riches, and benefits 
shoot from him as boughs from a tree — and he is 
asked to shower down wealth on his worshippers as 
the hook shakes the ripe fruit from the tree. . . . 
He is the helper of the poor — the deliverer and the 
comforter — a wall of defence — his friendship is inde- 
structible — it is no idle phrase when one poet ex- 
claims; "We are thine and thou art ours! . . ." 



THE STORM-MYTH. 20I 

" The days dawn prosperously for him who says : 
Come, let us press the soma for Indra! . . . That 
king's power is never shaken in whose house Indra 
drinks strong soma mixed with milk ; he flourishes 
in peace, conquers in war, and dwells securely at 
home, enjoying high renown." It is but just to say 
that Indra is very exclusive in his friendships, and 
" will have nothing to do with the wretch who does 
not press the soma" — i. e., with such native peoples 
as have not become converted to the Aryan faith. 

lO, That one whose favors were so very substan- 
tial, and who was so lavish of them, should be the 
object of selfish and envious solicitations, is but 
natural. Many are the passages in which Indra is 
warned against rival petitioners, with a naive direct- 
ness which is highly amusing, for instance : 

" I will harness the bays to Indra's chariot and draw him down by 
a new song. Do not let other hymn-singers — and there are many — 
turn thee from thy way." — (II., 18, 3.) 

' ' Speed thee hither, Indra, with thy mettlesome bays ; let no one 
snare thee, like a bird in a net, but drive straight on, as through a 
flat country." — (III., 45, i.) 

No less amusing are the remonstrances, nay, 
downright upbraidings, with which one or other wor- 
shipper does not fear to assail his favorite god if he 
thinks himself slighted or inadequately remembered : 

" Gracious are thy hands, O Indra, and beneficent when they be- 
stow gifts on the singer. Where tarriest thou ? Why hastest thou 
not to the drinking-bout? Or art thou disinclined to give? " — (IV., 

29. 9-) 

"Why do men call thee generous, thou wealthy one? A giver 
thou art, so I hear : then give to me. Let my hymn be blest with 
treasure, O mighty one. . . ." — (X., 42, 3.) 



202 VEDIC INDIA. 

Most characteristic of all in the way of chiding is 
the following, though there is no lack of separate 
passages where the god is called " stingy," and 
" tardy," and " grudging " : 

" Had I, O Indra, so much wealth as thou possessest, I should 
freely give to my worshipper, thou source of wealth ; I should not 
leave him in poverty. — I would lavish riches on him day by day, 
wherever he might be ; for nothing is more valuable to us than thou 
art — not kindred, not even a father." — (VII., 42, 18-19.) 

Or this: 

" Were all the riches mine, O Indra, which thou ownest, my poet 
should be wealthy. — I would help him, bless him with gifts, O Lord 
of Might, were I the Lord of Kine. . . . For no god nor mortal 
can hinder thy liberality, O Indra, when it is thy will to give." — 
(VIII., 14, I, 2, 4.) 

II. When scholars tell us that Indra is a 
creation of a later and different epoch from 
that of the old sky-gods Dyaus and Vdruna, a 
growth, moreover, of India's own soil — (it were per- 
haps more correct to say Penjab's) — they by no 
means rest their assertion on mere circumstantial 
evidence. There is, in the Rig-Veda itself, ample 
evidence of the impetuous Storm- and War-god 
having supplanted the two great Asuras, and that by 
no means peaceably, without strife and bitterness 
dividing the followers of the new worship and the 
old — until the latter were carried away by the tide of 
the times and public feeling. If the interpretation 
of scattered single lines or expressions might still 
leave room for doubt, the following entire hymn 
(IV., 42) does not. Nothing could be more explicit. 
It is in the dramatic form of a dialogue : each god 



THE STORM-MYTFT. 203 

speaks for himself, and the poet decides between 
their rival claims. 

^\V^dr una speaks): I am the King : mine is the lordship. All the 
gods are subject to me, the universal life-giver, and follow^ Varuna's 
ordinances ; I rule in men's highest sanctuary. — I am King Varuna ; 
my own are these primeval heavenly powers. . . . — I, O Indra, 
am Varuna, and mine are the two wide, deep, blessed worlds. A 
wise maker, I created all the beings ; Heaven and Earth are by me 
preserved. —I made the flowing waters to swell ; I established in their 
sacred seat the heavens ; I, the holy Aditya, spread out the tri- 
partite (or threefold) universe." (Heaven, Earth, and Atmosphere.) 

" {Indra speaks) : I am invoked by the steed-possessing men, when 
pressed hard in battle ; I am the mighty one who stirs up the fight 
and whirls up the dust, in my overwhelming strength. All that have 
I done, nor can the might of all the gods restrain me, the Uncon- 
quered ; when I am exhilarated by libations and prayers, then quake 
both boundless worlds." 

" ( The priest speaks) : That thou didst all these things, all beings 
know ; and now thou hast proclaimed it to Varuna, O Ruler ! Thee, 
Indra, men praise as the slayer of Vritra ; it was thou who didst let 
loose the imprisoned waters." 

12. There is another hymn — a much later one, as 
shown by the far abstruser tone and more elaborate 
diction (X., 124) — which tells (or commemorates) the 
same story. There the poet summons Agni out of 
the darkness to conduct the sacrifice. The divine 
hotar then announces that he is loth to forsake an 
old friend and go among strangers, but that he " has 
long observed the guest of the other party," has 
travelled through many places, and he concludes : 

' ' I now say farewell to the Father, the Asura ; I go from him to 
whom no sacrifices are offered to him to whom men sacrifice. — In 
choosing Indra, I give up the Father, though I have lived with him 
many years in friendship. Agni, Varuna, and Soma must give way ; 
the power goes to another, I see it come." 



204 VkDiC INDIA, 

13. Indra clearly was the god for a struggling, 
conquering, unscrupulously pushing people, rather 
than the great Aditya — majestic, serene, and just. 
In what way the supremacy was, so to speak, offi- 
cially transferred to him, there is nothing to inform 
us. There is quite a number of passages, even of 
whole hymns, full of allusions to Indra's birth, child- 
hood, early exploits, and the like. But the wording 
is so obscure, most of the things alluded to are so 
utterly unknown to us, that nothing coherent or 
satisfactory can be made out of all these texts. 
Heaven and earth are said to quake with fear before 
his anger at his birth. His mother (who is she?) 
seems to die almost as soon as he is born ; then he 
is said to have taken his father by the foot and 
hurled him down. There are also hints of conspir- 
acy to kill him in his sleep or on his wanderings, 
and he himself is made to say : " Pressed hard by 
hunger, I cooked dogs' entrails ; I found no god 
who would take pity on me ; I saw my wife deeply 
bowed with grief ; then the eagle brought me sweet 
Soma." * It would be vain to try to piece a consist- 
ent story out of these shreds : for there are plenty 
of other lines, even in the same hymn, which point 
to different versions of the same events. All that 
we can gather from the above quotations, and other 
passages, is the plain allusion (in mythical language) 
to the antagonism and persecution of which he is the 
object, on the part of the other gods, i. e., the fol- 
lowers of the older gods. 

14. Neither do we know when or how the feud 

' See for more on this subject, ch. vii. 



J 



THE STORM-MYTH. 205 

between " the gods " was laid. But certain it is 
that harmony was restored at some time, for we 
meet with numerous hymns addressed to Indra and 
Vdruna jointly ; they peacefully share at last the 
government of the world, each in his own line. This 
is expressly intimated in a text : " The one [Indra] 
loves to slay foes, the other [Varuna] always main- 
tains his ordinances." Indra is also frequently 
addressed jointly with several of the greater gods— 
with Agni, Soma, Vayu, and others. Vayu and 
Agni, indeed, became in the course of time most 
closely associated with him — till, at the later period 
of Brahmanic theology, the three — Rain, Fire, and 
Wind^formed a sort of mystic trinity or triad. 

15. The personality of Indra, though sufficiently 
transparent, still has enough of complexity in its 
duality (Storm-god and War-god) to suggest evolu- 
tion from simpler material, from a more directly 
naturalistic conception. We shall hardly go wrong 
if we seek the latter in Parjanya, the Storm-god 
pure and simple, originally neither more nor less than 
the rain-cloud or the thunder-cloud itself, for par- 
janya is frequently used in the Rig-Veda as a 
common noun for clouds Of several texts, one is 
absolutely decisive : " Even during the day the 
Maruts shed darkness by the water-bringing par- 
ja7tyar Now nothing but a cloud can shed dark- 

' The word is said to come from the same root z.% pdrvata — cloud 
and mountain. This god has a special interest for us moderns, be- 
cause he remained the highest god of a large branch of the Aryan 
race — the Slavo-Lithuanian, who still worshipped him for many cen- 
turies after Christ, under the scarcely altered name of Perkunas = 
Perkons = Per(Jn. 



2o6 VEDIC INDIA. 

ness during the day. Agni is asked to "send the 
ra'in-hnnging />arjanj/a hither"; then the plural is 
used : " the parjanyd [clouds] bring joy to the 
earth." But these are isolated survivals. The 
Rain-and-Storm god (for India knows little of our 
quiet rains) is almost always separated from the 
cloud, which is sometimes his chariot, sometimes the 
barrel or skin filled with the water which he pours 
down on the worlds ; then he is the " Son of 
Heaven," who " speaks a gleam-accompanied, re- 
sounding word which brings refreshment." 

i6. Parjanya has one peculiar feature : he pours 
the seed on the earth ; it enters the plants and 
there becomes the germ. His name is hardly ever 
mentioned without some allusion being made to this 
important duty oi his, and he is in consequence 
directly invoked as the special guardian of plants : 
" Parjanya, who brings us food through the plants." 
Does not this forcibly remind us of that curious 
Old-Eranian belief that the seeds of all plants were 
carried down to earth by the rain ? ' 

17. From all this it will be seen that Parjanya very 
possibly goes back to the oldest Aryan period, and 
might fairly claim a place, in Aryan India, among 
the " Older gods," the subject-matter of our pre- 
ceding chapter. But, with every presumption in 
favor of the suggestion, which great scholars en- 
dorse,'' the link is broken, direct proof is wanting, no 

' See Story of Media, etc., p. 65. 

^ See especially the two exhaustive papers by Geo. Biihler, in the 
Transactions of the London Philological Society, 1859, pp. 154 ff. 
(English), and in Benfey's Orient and Occident, vol. i., pp. i\i\ff. 



THE STORM-MYTH. 20/ 

corresponding name being found in Indo-Eranian 
antiquity. One thing is sure : that Indra and Par- 
janya are distinct mythical persons, not convertible 
quantities. We have a text which says expressly : 
" Great Indra, who is like to Parjanya in power." 
It is extremely probable that at one time they were, 
so to speak, parallel gods, i. e., that two different 
Aryan tribes worshipped the Storm-and-Rain god 
under these two different names, with some differ- 
ences also in their functions; that Indra happened 
to be the god of the more pushing, warlike tribes, 
and thus early developed into the champion of 
Aryan conquest, and by his growing popularity 
quickly eclipsed his former brother. 

1 8. Among the five or six hymns to Parjanya, 
there is one — V., 83 — which is one of the very few 
Vedic pieces of complete and faultless poetical 
beauty, without anticlimaxes or any of the puerilities 
or vulgarities which so often leave us disappointed 
with otherwise fine effusions : 

" I. Sing unto the strong with these songs, laud Parjanya, with 
praise worship him. Loud bellows the Bull ; he lays down the seed 
and fruit in the herbs. — 2. He cleaves the trees asunder, he slays 
the Rakshasas ; all living creatures fear the wearer of the mighty 
bolt. Even the sinless trembles before him, the giver of rain, for 
Parjanya, thundering, slays the evil-doers. — 3. As a driver who 
urges his horses with his whip, he makes the rainy messengers 
appear. From far arises the roar of the lion when Parjanya 
makes the cloud full of rain. — 4. The winds rage, the lightnings 
shoot through the air, the herbs sprout forth from the ground, the 

(German). One of the greatest contemporary Vedic scholars, Lud- 
wig, on the other hand, specially identifies Parjanya with the 
spring monsoon. If so, he might very well be of Indian growth, 
yet older than Indra. 



2o8 VEDIC INDIA. 

heavens overflow, refreshment is borne to all creatures when Par- 
janya blesses the earth with rain. — 5. Thou, Parjanya, shield us 
well, by whose doing the earth is shaken, by whose doing the hoofed 
herd is supported, by whose doing herbs of all kinds sprout forth. 
— 6. . . . Oh come to us with the thunder-cloud, pouring down 
the waters, Asura, our father. — 7. Roar, thunder, give fruit, fly 
round us with thy chariot that is filled with water. Pull strongly the 
downward-bent, well-fastened water-skin ; may the heights and the 
valleys be made even. — 8. Lift up the great barrel, pour down ; 
loosened may the streams rush forward. Drench heaven and earth, 
give good drink to the kine. . . . — 10. Well hast thou poured 
down the rain, now cease ; thou makest that we can pass over the 
dry plains ; thou hast made the herbs to sprout that we may eat, and 
hast received praise from the creatures." 

19. The Rig- Veda was not generally known, even 
in name, sixty years ago, except among English and 
a few German scholars, — certainly not in Russia. 
Yet we find in the works of the great Russian poet 
Pushkin a short poem, which might be a free para- 
phrase on this hymn to Parjanya. We must be per- 
mitted to translate it for our readers, as it suggests 
interesting comparisons, and may serve as an addi- 
tional warning not to be too prompt to suspect 
connections or imitation wherever there is similarity 
of thought or imagery. Besides, the poem is both 
short and beautiful. 

THE CLOUD. 

Thou latest straggler of a storm that 's fled ! 

Alone thou floatest o'er the joyous blue, 
And easiest, on thy envious course and sad, 

O'er day reviving an ungenial hue. 

It was but now thy shade the sky o'erspread. 

And from thy gloom the threatening lightning broke. 



THE STORM-MYTH. 209 

And from thy womb the mystic thunder spoke, 
And with thy rain the thirsting earth was fed. 

Enough then ! hie thee from the peaceful scene ! 

Refreshed is earth, and long dispersed the storm ; 

The zephyr courts the trees and sweeps thy form 
Far from the azure of the sky serene. 

' 20. But little need be added specially about Indra's 
companions in battle, the warlike Maruts — the 
Storm-Winds. They are the sons of Prishni, the 
Cloud-cow,* and of RUDRA, rather a subordinate 
deity in the Veda, though undoubtedly very old, 
but who, in later Brahmanism and especially Hin- 
duism, rose to the highest rank. He is thought by 
the latest scholars to be a personification of the 
stormy sky, as opposed to the serene sky — ^Varuna^ 
Ludwig suggests that the oldest conception of Dyaus 
— the Sky in its entirety, in all its manifestations — 
split itself into those of Varuna and Rudra, the latter 
representing the elementary, the former the spiritual 
and moral side of the original conception ^ — of 
course a later evolution, yet older than Indra. 
'Rudra undoubtedly is a wielder of the thunder- 
bolt : it is his deadly arrow, with which he is en- \ 
treated not to strike the worshipper, or his children, 
or his cattle, but, if need be, to draw his mighty 
bow against "somebody else." "The Terrible" 
(rudra) is his name, and terrible he is ; and the 

' Prishni, "speckled," from the root PRISH, which, however, also 
means " sprinkle " (the connection between the two is obvious) 
— a play on homonyms or ptin quite in the taste of all ancient 
mythical poetry, and a liberal source of stories, riddles, and puzzles. 

^ The Rigveda, vol. iii., p. 320. 
14 



2IO VEDIC INDIA. 

flattering things which are said of and to him, about 
his beauty, his splendor, his healing powers, must 
be taken as the deprecatory utterances of fear. The 
best that is expected of him is to spare. It will be 
seen how widely this deity differs from Indra. 

21. The Maruts themselves are frequently called 
Rudras. They appear always in troops ; sometimes 
they are twenty-seven, sometimes sixty-six ; then 
there are said to be thousands of them — ways of 
saying '' a great many." They are all alike ; no 
distinctions are made between them, either of age 
or appearance ; they always act in a body and are 
" of one mind." Sometimes they drive along " with 
golden mantles waving, sometimes " cloaked in rain," 
and once they are shown "clothed in the woolly 
cloud " as they " split open the rock with might." 
Their chariots, drawn by self-yoked dappled mares 
or spotted deer, fleet as birds, now are " laden with 
lightning," now with buckets and barrels of water 
which they pour down as they go, singing loudly. 
Their very sweat is rain, and pleasant to the ear is 
the crack of their whips (the whistle and whizz of 
the wind that ushers in a storm). They are boister- 
ous and noisy. The hymns are simply inexhausti- 
ble on this theme, and rise on some occasions to 
naturalistic poetry of great beauty. No enemy is 
there to face them, not in heaven nor on earth ; they 
make the mountains to tremble, they rend and shake 
the trees like wild elephants ; the earth totters and 
quakes before them with fear " as an aged king." 
Of course they are entreated for all the usual good 
things of which Indra is commonly the dispenser, 



THE STORM-MYTH. 211 

and they are not spared rebuke any more than Indra 
when they do not respond promptly enough to their 
votaries' instances : 

' ' Were ye but mortals, O sons of Prishni, and your worshipper 
were an immortal — ye should not be neglected as the insect (?) in the 
grass, nor should ye go the road to Yama [die] ; nor be perpetually 
subjected to distress and danger." 

22. Great and constant as is the friendship between 
Indra and the Maruts, there are some few traces in 
the hymns of a dispute between them, with mutual 
reproaches and self-assertion. Now a dispute be- 
tween gods always means one between their votaries, 
and verses like the following may point to some 
ancient schism between priests of the Maruts and 
priests of Indra, each party probably contending 
for their favorites' respective claims to superior 
prowess and power. In the principal of the pas- 
sages in question, Indra rebukes the Maruts for 
having left him to fight the serpent Ahi single- 
handed, immediately adding that he is strong and 
powerful enough to overcome his enemies by his 
own might alone. They reply : 

" Thou hast indeed done great things, O mighty one, with us for 
thy helpers, through our equal valor. But we Maruts, O strong 
Indra, can perform many great deeds by our power when we so 
desire. " 

Ind7-a retorts: "By my own inborn might, O Maruts, I slew 
Vritra. Through my own wrath I grew so strong. It was I who, 
wielding the lightning, opened the way for the shining waters to run 
down for men. " 

The Maruts : " In truth, O hero, there is nought thou canst not 
conquer. Thou hast no equal among the gods ..." 



212 VEDIC INDIA. 

Indra : " Mine then must be the supreme power. What I have 
begun, I carry out wisely ; for, O Maruts, I am known as the 
Strong One. ..." (I., 165.) 

In conclusion, Indra expresses himself as pleased 
with their, praise and homage, and the old friendship 
is renewed — on the distinct understanding that In- 
dra is the greater. And so he has the best of it 
here, as he had in his dispute with Varuna. 

23. We have now pretty thoroughly studied those 
gloomy scenes of what we called the Atmospheric 
Drama which are known in mythological language 
as the Storm-Myth. But there is another drama, 
enacted not in the Middle-Region, but on a higher 
plane — in the highest heaven itself ; nor are the chief 
actors beings of war and violence, but the most 
beauteous and gentle of Powers — the light-and-life- 
giving Sun, and the loveliest of heaven's daughters, 
the Dawn. Wherefore the scenes in which they take 

(^part have received the collective name of SUN-AND- 
JDawn Myth, Their parts — as those of genuine pro- 
tagonists or " first subjects " should — embrace both 
love and war : love towards each other (for in some 
way Sun and Dawn must always be closely con- 
nected), and war with the beings of opposite nature 
to theirs: Darkness in all its forms, and consequently 
some of the foes of Indra and the Maruts — obscuring 
clouds and blinding mists. 

24. The Sun-and-Dawn drama presents more 
variety of incident than the Storm drama, for the 
reason that these two mythical persons offer richer 
poetical material to a lively imagination which, 
according to the moment's mood or fancy, can 



THE STORM-MYTH. 21? 

place them in different relations to each other and 
to the other and lesser powers which complete 
the cast. Thus, if the Dawn is the born enemy of 
Darkness, which to dispel and rout is her only 
business, she is also the twin sister of Night, as 
they are manifestly both daughters of Dyaus, the 
Sky, and both work in harmony in their alternate 
times, keeping the eternal ordinances of Rita and 
the Adityas (see pp. 146, 155). Then again she has 
another sister, even more brilliant, but also older, 
sadder than herself — the evening Gloaming, doomed 
to be devoured by the demon Darkness, the shaggy 
Beast, which the bright young sister vanquished in 
the morning. Or yet— Dawn and Gloaming are one : 
the maiden, dazzling in her beauty, arrayed in saf- 
fron and rosy robes, drives her golden chariot 
through the portals of the East, closely followed by 
her lover the young Sun, whose advances she re- 
ceives, coy, but not unwilling, until her delicate, 
ethereal being shrinks from his more and more fiery 
touch and she flees to the ends of the heavens, van- 
ishes, and is lost to her gay lover ; he, meantime, not 
being free to tarry (for the path laid out by Rita 
must be run), pursues his way, meets foes — the cloud- 
demons of many shapes, the crawling mist-serpents, 
whom he transfixes and dispels with his golden spear 
— meets other loves too, especially the dangerously 
fascinating Apsaras, the water-maidens that sail the 
sky on light shifting cloudlets — until, weary, shorn of 
his power, yet glorious still, he sinks low and lower, 
sometimes serenely victorious, sometimes still fight- 
ing his darkling, crowding foes, whom he disperses 



214 VEDIC INDIA. 

by a last mighty effort, like a dying hero ; and here 
at last he, the old Sun, beholds again his love of 
the morning — no longer the radiant, hopeful Dawn, 
but the subdued, the saddened Gloaming. For one 
brief while the lovers are united at their career's 
end ; for one brief moment the joy of their meeting 
irradiates the West, then, in each other's embrace, 
they sink to their rest — to their doom, and Darkness, 
their arch-foe, engulphs them. To-morrow's young 
rising Sun is their child — if the popular fancy cares 
to look for a sequel to the day's drama, which is not 
usual in early Indian poetry. It prefers the fiction 
of the old Sun being somehow rejuvenated, cured, 
liberated, and reappearing youthful and vigorous in 
the morning. 

25. It is very evident that these are only one or 
two of a great many possible poetical interpretations 
of the same natural phenomena, and that each such 
interpretation must shape itself into an image, an 
incident, a story. What endless material for love 
stories, love tragedies ! Each such utterance, sepa- 
rately, is only a more or less apt and beautiful poetical 
figure, simile, metaphor. But if collected and fitted 
and pieced into a system, then consistently carried 
through, some very queer and even distressing feat- 
ures will appear — distressing, i.e., so long as we have 
not the key to mythical language and take its say- 
ings as we would so many bald statements on human 
affairs. So, while the Sun is the eternal foe of Dark- 
ness, still, as he is seen to emerge out of darkness, 
he may, in a sense, be said to be the " Child of Dark- 
ness," and it follows that he of necessity must kill 



THE STORM-MYTH. 21$ 

his father, just as Agni must needs devour his parents 
as soon as born (see p. i6o). Again, it is no faulty 
poetical figure to call the Sun the child, or the 
brother, of the Dawn — and then it may very well 
happen that he loves, or weds, his mother or his sis- 
ter, or kills her ! Bad enough to place gods in such 
awkward positions ; at least the devout votary has 
the resource, like Agni's worshipper, to abstain from 
judging the acts of great deities (see p. i6o). But 
bring down all this to earth — as all nature-myth has 
invariably been brought down, to become Heroic 
Epos — and see in what a fine tangle the later poets 
will find themselves, what horrible deeds they will 
calmly relate of their most cherished ancient heroes 
and founders of royal houses, without the least 
consciousness or recollection of the original real 
meaning of what they tell ! Fortunately there is lit- 
tle system or consistency in the Rig-Veda — at least, 
so far as combining and connecting the different 
myths with which it teems. So we can take each 
one on its own merits, untroubled by moral qualms 
or logical misgivings. 

S(JRYA — THE SUN. 

26. To begin with plain fact, SURYA is the 
Sanskrit common noun designating the Sun ; the 
root contained in it gives it the meaning of " bril- 
liant, shining." And Surya is, in the Rig-Veda, the 
material, visible luminary, " created " by the gods 
(or even some particular god), and obedient to their 
bidding. But Surya is not only the sun, he is also 
the Sun-god, powerful, independent, subject only to 



2l6 VEDIC INDIA. 

the ordinances of the great Adityas, themselves 
governed by Rita, the supreme Cosmic and Moral 
Law. This distinction — surely unconscious, and 
which we find in the presentment of all the Nature- 
gods — between their physical and moral essence, 
accounts for the difference in the tone of the several 
hymns, and even different parts of the same hymns, 
addressed to this deity. These invocations are 
mostly fine poetry, and the figures used explain 
themselves. 

27. One quality has been universally ascribed to 
the divinized Sun in every age, by every ancient 
race : that of being " all-seeing." The association of 
this quality with the giver of light and the disperser 
of darkness is too natural to suggest mutual borrow- 
ing, and we need not wonder if we find a striking 
resemblance between the Old Chaldean and the Old 
Aryan hymns to the Sun, not only in this particular, 
but in several other poetical conceptions." Surya, , 
a Son of the Sky (Dyaus), we have already learned 
to know as the Eye of Mitra and Varuna.^ Now, , 
in Oriental phraseology, the Eyes of the King are ;i 
his spies, so it is but natural that he should observe | 
all the deeds of men, and report them to the great 
Adityas, the guardians and avengers of Law and 
Right. That the expression was really undei;stood 
in this manner is proved by the frequent prayer to 
Surya to " report men sinless before the Adityas," — 
which looks singularly like a request, in child-slang, 
" not to tell on them," and so not bring them into 

'See Story of Chaldea, pp. 171, 172. 

2 Once Surya is called the Eye of Agni also (I., 115). 



THE STORM-MYTH. 21} 

disgrace and punishment. Thus one of the Vasish- 
thas sings : 

"If thou, O Surya, at thy rising wilt report us truly sinless to 
Varuna and Mitra, we will sing to please the gods. . . , Surya 
is rising, O Varuna-Mitra, to pace both worlds, looking down on 
men, protector of all that travel or stay, beholding right and wrong 
among men. He unharnesses his seven Harits * . . . and hastens 
dutifully to your throne, ye twain, surveying all beings, as a shepherd 
his flock. . . , Surya emerges from the sea of light, he whose 
path the Adityas laid out. . . ." (VII., 60.) 

". . . He unweaves [ravels up] the black mantle, his rays cast 
off the darkness, rolling it up as a hide and dropping it into the 
waters. 

" Not hanging on to anything, not made fast, how comes it that he 
falls not from such height ? By whose guidance does he travel ? 
Who has seen it ? " (IV., 13.) 

Even more rapturous is the following greeting : 

" The gods' bright face has now arisen, the Eye of Mitra, Varuna, 
and Agni ; Siirya fills heaven, earth, and atmosphere, the breath of 
life of all that stands and moves. . . . The beautiful golden 
Harits, the bright ones, hailed by songs of joy, they mount to the 
highest heaven, and in one day their course encircles heaven and earth. 
And when he unharnesses the mares, the veil of darkness 
spreads over all things." (I., 115.) 

We have learned to know the Sun as a horse, and 
as a bird. These images both remain standing 
symbols of the god, and there even are two hymns 
(I., 163 and X., 177), rather obscurely and mystically 
worded, celebrating him as " the Bird adorned by 

^ Surya's seven steeds or mares — as also the Dawn's — are generally 
called Harits ("brilliant, ruddy") ; they are of course his rays, as 
the first verse of I., 50, expressly shows (see farther on). It should be 
noted, however, that the steeds of other gods — Indra's and Agni's, 
for instance — are also sometimes called so. 



2l8 VEDIC INDIA. 

the Asura " (Varuna), and as " the Horse who 
neighed as soon as he was born, emerging out of 
the waters [or mist]," the Steed with the "falcon's 
wings and the gazelle's feet." So the Dawn is said 
to bring "the Eye of the gods" to "lead forth the 
white and lovely horse." There are few entire 
hymns addressed to Surya, but of these the fol- 
lowing (!.,' 50), has become famous for its rich 
imagery and its unusually finished literary form : 

" I. The god who knows all beings rises aloft, drawn by his rays, 
that he, Siirya, may behold all things.' — 2. Straightway, like thieves, 
the stars with their brightness slink away before the all-seeing god. — 
3. His rays are visible to all mankind, blazing like flames. — 4. All- 
conspicuous on thy rapid course thou Greatest light,, illumining the 
whole firmament. — 5. Thou risest for the race of gods and for that of 
men, that all may behold thy light. — 6. With that same glance where- 
with Varuna, the illuminator, surveys the busy race of men, — 7. 
Thou, O Siirya, searchest the sky and the wide space, making the 
days, spying out all creatures. — 8. Seven mares bear thee on, O far- 
seeing Surya, in thy chariot, god of the flaming locks. — 9, Siirya has 
harnessed the seven Harits, daughters of the car, self-yoked. — 10. 
Gazing out of the darkness up at the highest light, we have reached 
Surya, a god among the gods. " 

INDRA AND SURYA. 

Surya's relations to Indra are rather peculiar. The 
grim warrior god appears to treat him sometimes in 
a friendly and sometimes in a hostile way. True, 
there are many passages — in hymns to Indra, be it 
noted — which would place the sun-god in his direct 
dependence, by actually saying that he was created 

* This is the rendering of the French scholar A. Bergaigne ; others 
translate, "that all may behold Surya." Either meaning would be 
appropriate and satisfactory. 



THE STORM-MYTH. 219 

by Indra ; but this must be taken only as a piece of 
exaggeration from excessive zeal on the part of the 
worshipper to ingratiate himself with the deity he is 
invoking — a trick of Vedic priestly poetry which has 
long been noticed as one of its most peculiar and 
characteristic features. When, however, Indra is 
said to have prepared the way for Surya, or " caused 
him to shine," it is no more than good myth-rhetoric. 
For we can well imagine — from personal observation — 
the sun-god so overwhelmed in battle with Ahi, 
Vritra, and other cloud-demons as to be unable to 
extricate himself and overcome his foes without the 
help of the Thunderer's weighty arm ; in plain prose 
— a thunderstorm clears the sky and allows the sun 
to shine. It is, in substance, the same myth as that 
contained in a passage which tells how " the gods 
lifted Surya out of the sea \saimidrd\ wherein he lay 
hidden " (X., 72). Not less transparent is the re- 
quest to Indra that he should "hide the sun," here 
likened to a wheel, and direct his bolts against 
Shushna, the Demon of Drought. But this short 
verse also very clearly shows how Surya, on cer- 
tain occasions, could be regarded by Indra, on be- 
half of men and nature generally, as an enemy and 
a nuisance,to be suppressed, at least temporarily, at 
all cost. For when battle is to be waged in earnest 
against the wickedest of all fiends, the blazing disc, 
or wheel, of the sun is hardly a desirable auxiliary. 
So that we do not wonder at the climax when Indra 
is praised for having, with the help of Soma, broken 
a wheel from Surya's chariot and sent it spinning 
downhill, thereby laming " the great wizard." 



220 VEDIC INDIA. 

INDRA AND USHAS. 

27. On the same principle we can understand 
how the Dawn herself — USHAS, the beautiful, the 
auspicious ' — could be treated by Indra at times with 
the utmost severity ; in seasons of drought, is not the 
herald of another cloudless day, the bringer of the 
blazing sun, a wicked sorceress, a foe to gods and 
men, to be dealt with as such by the Thunderer 
when, soma-drunk, he strives with his friends the 
Maruts to storm the brazen stables of the sky, and 
bring out the blessed milch-kine which are therein 
imprisoned ? Indra's treatment of the hostile Dawn 
is as summary as his treatment of Surya, though at 
other times he is as ready to help her, and " lay out 
a path " for her, and " cause her to shine " or '* light 
her up." It is the same myth ; and fortunately we 
have it in a far clearer and completer form. Smash- 
ing the obnoxious one's car seems to be the one 
method which occurs to the great foe-smiter, who is 
more earnest than inventive. 

"This heroic task also, this manly deed, O Indra, thou didst 
perform, that thou didst smite the woman who planned mischief, 
the Daughter of the Sky [Dyaus] ; this Ushas, who was exalting 
herself, thou didst strike her down. Ushas fell in terror from her 
shattered car when the mighty one had felled it to the ground. 
There it lay, broken utterly, while she herself fled far away." 
(IV., 30.) 

This feat of Indra's is recounted in a hymn which 
rehearses a list of his finest exploits. It is evidentl)' 
looked on as one of his highest claims to glory and 

' Ushas — from a root meaning "to bum," " to glow." 



THE STORM-MYTH. 221 

gratitude, for it is repeatedly alluded to iii different 
books. In one passage, the fair Ushas is represented 
as having taken the lesson to heart and flying of her 
own accord, leaving her chariot standing, from fear 
of Indra's bolt, while in another the latter is said to 
have smitten certain enemies as he had broken 
Ushas' car. 

USHAS, THE DAWN. 

28. What strikes us most in all this is the exulting 
and insulting tone in which the poets celebrate the 
defeat of the goddess who is, except on this one oc- 
casion, their greatest favourite, their heart's desire, 
— one might almost say their pet. Some twenty 
hymns are addressed wholly to her, and she has a 
place in numerous others ; and everywhere the poets' 
fancy exhausts itself in brilliant and dainty imagery, 
in a variety of loving and admiring epithets. Again 
and again she is likened to a beautiful woman or 
maiden, who reveals herself in all her loveliness ; and 
it must be confessed that these descriptions, as a 
rule, recall Oriental harem life (or the Zenana of In- 
dian princes), too realistically to be relished by the 
general reader in their original crudity. So that 
such passages, scattered through most of the Rig 
books, may best Tae summed up in the very compre- 
hensive lines of Mr. J. Muir.' 

" Like a beautiful young woman dressed by her mother, a richly 
decked dancing girl, a gaily attired wife appearing before her hus- 
band, or a female rising resplendent out of the bath, — smiling and 

* Sanskrit Texts, vol. v., p. 194. 



222 VEDIC INDIA. 

confiding in the irresistible power of her attractions, she unveils her 
bosom to the gaze of the beholder." 

A few characteristic verses culled from various 
hymns will be more interesting and instructive than 
descriptions detached from the texts : 

" The shining Ushas has been perceived ; she has opened the 
doors [of the sky] ; setting in motion all living things, she has 
revealed to us treasures — [the golden treasures of light that were 
hidden by darkness] — Ushas has awakened all creatures (I., 113, 4). 
— . . . She hastens on, arousing footed creatures, and makes the 
birds fly aloft (I., 48, 5). — The birds fly up from their nests and men 
seeking food leave their homes (I., 124, 12). — [Arousing] the pros- 
trate sleeper to move, [impelling] one to enjoyment, another to the 
pursuit of wealth, [enabling] those who see but a little way to see far ; 
. . . [arousing] one to wield the royal power, another to follow 
after fame, another to the pursuit of wealth, another to perform ser- 
vices, Ushas awakes all creatures to go their different paths in life 
(I., 113, 5, 6). — Inasmuch as thou hast made Agni to be kindled — 
[for morning worship] — . . . and hast awakened the men who 
are to sacrifice, thou hast done good service to the gods (I., 113, g). 
— She has yoked [her horses] from the remote rising place of Surya ; 
. . . Everything that moves bows down before her glance ; the 
active goddess creates light ; by her appearance the magnificent 
Daughter of the Sky drives away our haters. Ushas has repelled 
our enemies. ... In thee when thou dawnest is the life and 
breath of all creatures. . . . " (I-, 48, 7-iO-) 

The dispeller of enemies — not only of the powers 
of darkness, but also of thieves and other malefactors 
who are sheltered by darkness, of bad dreams, phan- 
toms, spells, and all the evil brood of darkness — is 
quite naturally likened to a warrior brandishing 
weapons. But rarely. The poets dwell almost en- 
tirely on the lovely and even the pathetic aspects of 
their favorite. And indeed there is no lack of 



THE STORM-MYTH. 223 

pathos and sadness in the conception of a beauteous 
and gracious being who, herself immortal and ever 
youthful, though old as Time, serenely and inevi- 
tably, in obedience to the highest Law, (she is 
"the preserver of Rita," "born in Rita,") both 
prolongs and shortens life, each new day being 
both her gift to men and the tribute she levies on 
their sum of days. The pathos is deepened if the 
bringer of food and joy, the dispenser of life and 
death, is herself a mortal, a creature of a day — 
nay, of an hour, — one of many as brilliant and as 
ephemeral as herself, as she needs must be if each 
day is thought as having a dawn to itself. In the 
hymns to Ushas we find her addressed and referred 
to almost in one breath both as the one ever- 
returning or born again, and as the fleeting unit of 
an endless series : 



"... As thou wast invoked by the poets of old, . . . 
reward our praise also, O Ushas, with gifts and with brilliant light ! 

(I., 48, 14). 

" Maintaining the ordinances of the gods, but wasting away the 
lives of men, Ushas has shone forth, the last of the numerous Dawns 
that are past, and the first of those that are coming (I., 124, 2). 

" Shine on us with thy best rays, O divine Ushas ; give us a long 
life ! (VIL, 77, 5). 

" Ushas has dawned before ; let her now dawn again. . . . 

(I., 48, 3). 

" Born again and again, though ancient, shining with an ever 
uniform hue, she wastes away the life of mortals as a clever gambler 
the stakes — (I., 92, 10). 

" Ushas follows the track of the Dawns that are past and is the 
first of the unnumbered Dawns that are to come. — • . . . How 
great is the interval that lies between the Dawns that have arisen and 
those which are yet to arise ? Ushas yearns longingly after the for- 



224 VEDIC INDIA. 

mer Dawns and gladly goes on shining with the others [that are to 
come]. Those mortals are gone who saw the earliest Ushas dawn ; 
we shall gaze upon her now ; and the men are coming who are to be- 
hold her on future morns. — . . . Perpetually in former days 
did the divine Ushas dawn ; and now to-day the radiant goddess 
beams upon this world : undecaying, immortal. . . . " (I., 113, 
8-13.) 

The hymn from which the last extract is taken 
(L, 113) is the longest and most sustainedly beauti- 
ful of those addressed to the " desire of all men," 
— that which closes with the magnificent finale, the 
grandest lyrical effusion in the whole Rig- Veda : 

" Rise ! Our life, our breath has come back ! The darkness is 
gone, the light approaches ! Ushas has opened a path for Surya to 
travel ; we have reached the point where our days are lengthened. 
The priest, the poet, celebrating the brightening Ushas, arises with 
the web of his hymn ; shine, therefore, magnificent Ushas, on him 
who praises thee. . . . Mother of the gods ! manifestation of 
Aditi ! * banner of the sacrifice, mighty Ushas, shine forth ! Arise ! 
lend a gracious ear to our prayer, giver of all boons !" (I., 113, 16-20.) 

We seem to see the uplifted hands, the worship- 
ping upturned eyes, amid the glories of the awaken- 
ing Eden-like nature — and we long for a burst of 
Wagner's song and harmony. It seems as though 
nothing short of Brynhild's waking invocation, " Hail, 
O Sun," could worthily render the grandeur, sim- 
plicity and whole-hearted adoration in this archaic 
ode.^' 

* See p. 154. 

** Nor is the association far-fetched. For Brynhild and Sigfrid are 
originally the Sun-and-Dawn lovers of Teutonic mythology, as is now 
fully understood by the veriest dabbler in music and folk-lore. 



THE STORM-MYTH. 22 5 

THE TWO SISTERS. 

29. There are some verses in this same hymn 
which very beautifully and completely describe the 
Dawn's relations to her sister, who of course is no 
other than Night. 

' ' The ruddy Bright-one with her bright Calf [the Sun] * has arrived ; 
to her the Dark-one has relinquished her abodes ; kindred to one 
another, immortal, alternating Night and Morning go on changing 
color. — The same is the never-ending path of the tvi^o sisters, which 
they travel by the gods' command. They strive not, they rest not, 
the majestic Night and Dawn, of one mind, though unlike." — (I,, 
113, 2-3.) 

Once or twice the Bright-one is said to be born of 
the Dark-one (the Dawn to be daughter of Night), 
but in the great majority of texts they are sisters — the 
two beauteous Daughters of the Sky, equally bene- 
ficent, equally welcome, and equally — but alternately 
— bringing refreshment and vigor to all that lives ; 
" alike to-day, alike to-morrow, fulfilling the fixed 
ordinance of Varuna," never transgressing it, never 
omitting to be at the proper time at the appointed 
place. Evidently Night is not here conceived as the 
wicked foe of men, the devouring Beast, the river or 
sea of darkness, but as the kind friend, the bringer 
of rest and coolness, the gentle fosterer and restorer. 
Both sisters are great weavers. They are perpetually 
weaving mantles and veils — golden, shining, or black, 
each after her manner ; and one undoes the weav- 
ing of the other. Ushas shows herself beaming at 
the borders of the sky, having thrown off the dark 

' This peculiar surname will be explained farther on. 
IS 



226 VEDIC INDIA. 

covering, as she drives on her beautiful chariot 
drawn by the self-yoked ruddy steeds (I., 113, 14); 
Surya rolls it up like a hide (VII., 63, i,) unweaves, 
ravels it up, and hides it away (IV., 13, 4). Yet even 
this work the sisters perform amicably: "Jointly 
they weave the out-spread curtain " (II., 4, 6). So 
close indeed is their relationship, though each goes 
when the other comes — Ushas " chases far away her 
sister " — and so harmoniously do they work together, 
that the poet at last wonderingly asks : " Which of 
them is the older and which the younger? Who 
knows, O ye sages ? They carry (between them) all 
that exists, revolving as on one wheel " (I., 185, l). 

30. Ushas' relations to the Sun are as natural, but 
more varied. She " shines with the light of her 
lover," Surya, who "follows her as a lover follows a 
maiden." But she flies before him and he never can 
join her; it were disastrous for her if he did, for the 
delicate Dawn never could stand the full blaze of her 
lover's splendor ; indeed one poet urges her — not 
very politely — to hasten and make no delay, that 
Surya may not scorch her like a thief or an enemy 
(v., 79, 9). But sometimes she is Surya's wife — 
though he is her brother too, both being children 
of Dyaus — and sometimes his mother. As such she 
appears in that peculiar passage where she arrives 
with her " bright Calf." For there Ushas, the fair, 
the resplendent, appears in the form of a Cow ! 

31. Vedic heavenly zoology is a curious thing; 
and confusing, unless one has the patience to study 
out its main features and underlying principle, after 
which it becomes, on the whole, tolerably intelligi- 



THE STORM-MYTH. 22/ 

ble. The phenomena are many ; the animals are few ; 
so they have to do duty for different things. They 
are, if we may so word it, homonyms in their way. 
Thus the Horse, the well-attested emblem of the 
Sun, once in a while stands for the Sky — as when 
the Pitris are said to have adorned the black horse 
with pearls (the moonless starry sky). Serpents are 
not always drought-clouds ; there are the serpents of 
darkness. Nor are cows always rain-clouds ; there 
are also the ruddy, bright cows — the Kine of Light, 
and the black cows — the Kine of Darkness. Looked 
at in one way. Night is the dark stable in which the 
bright cows are shut up ; Ushas opens the stable and 
they bound forth joyously and " scatter around her 
like a herd." These are of course the rays of the 
dawn which shoot forth in all directions — and lo! 
Ushas appears in the role of shepherdess. Vedic 
imagery could not stop there. From a " leader of 
cows," she became " the mother of cows," and con- 
sequently a cow herself ; a lovely bright one of 
course ; hence her child, the Sun — as calf ! But even 
so her bond with her sister Night is not severed, and 
both are invoked together as " the two cows which 
give milk of different colors from similar udders." 
This fully explains the otherwise obscure passage 
where Indra is said to have put dark milk in the 
black cows and light milk in the ruddy ones. 

32. We must not forget one last attribute of 
Ushas, not the least of her charms in the eyes of 
her by no means disinterested votaries — her great 
wealth. It is not only that, at her coming, she re- 
veals the treasures of golden light, — the herds of 



228 VEDIC INDIA. 

ruddy cows, — which had been hidden by her sister 
Night. She is the dispenser, in an indirect way, of 
far more substantial treasures. By going from house 
to house, arousing all sleepers, whether poor or rich, 
ko their day's work, she fosters honest endeavor and 
■lelps it to its earnings.' But even this is too slow 
md commonplace a way to wealth to content those 
priests who are forever crying out to the gods, in the 
name of the worshippers, for riches on a large scale — 
herds of cattle, horses, booty from enemies, wives 
(really female slaves), and sons, strong, stalwart, and 
numerous, — and, in their own, for "great gifts " and 
" liberality," i. e., the highest possible pay for their 
priestly services from kings and wealthy patrons 
generally. These great boons, these windfalls, the 
gods reserve for the pious sacrificer and " soma- 
presser," the zealous performer of appointed rites 
and singer of hymns. But, to be efificacious, the 
singing, the rites, the sacrifice, must take place at the 
appointed times, of which the most sacred and im- 
portant is the hour of sunrise. Ushas, therefore, 
who " causes Agni to be kindled " on the morning 
altar, who gives the signal for the "joyful voices " to 
be raised, and " brings the gods to the sacrifice " 
jointly with their messenger Agni, puts men in the 
way of obtaining all they so much covet, and thus 
becomes a dispenser of wealth. Not improperly, 
therefore, is she addressed in such strains as this. 



' Morgenstund^ hat gold im Mund (" Early morn has its mouth 
full of gold"), the homely old German saw instructs us, while " Early 
to rise," and " The early bird," are the despair of every nursery. 



THE STORM-MYTH, 229 

which may stand here for numberless similar pas- 
sages : 

"Dawn on us with prosperity, O Ushas, Daughter of the Sky, 
with great glory, O luminous and bountiful goddess, with riches ! 
— Bringing horses and cattle, all-bestowing, they [the Dawns] have 
often come to shine. Send riches then to me also, O Ushas, incline 
the Kings to dispense gifts. . . . Those princes, O Ushas, who 
at thy approach incline their thoughts to liberality, Kanva, the chief 
of his race,' here celebrates. — (I., 48, 1-4.) 

" May the soma-presser obtain such Dawns as rise upon the liberal 
mortal (Dawns), rich in kine, in sons all stalwart, and in horses. 
. . ."-(I-. "3, 18.) 

Always the same thing : the bargain between the 
worshipper and the deity he invokes. To the " lib- 
eral mortal," who grudges neither soma, nor fire, nor 
cakes and hymns, nor fees to the priests, a liberal re- 
turn is due from the gods. It is to be noticed that, 
however varied the Vedic Aryas' mythical {i. e., 
poetical) vocabulary may be, their begging is re- 
markably monotonous. They ask precisely the same 
things of every deity — quantities of them — and in 
almost precisely the same words. 

THE ASHVINS. 

33. Numerous are the Children of the Sky. We 
will close the brilliant galaxy with the renowned 
couple of twins, the ASHVINS, or Horsemen, the 
brothers of the Sun and the Dawn. They are almost 
as great favorites as the latter. Many hymns are 
addressed to them, and they are incidentally men- 

' This hymn is one of a collection attributed to the priestly family 
of the Kanvas. 



230 VEDIC INDIA. 

tioned or invoked in a great many more. No other 
deities, scarcely Indra himself, have become the 
heroes of such a number of what we may call " story- 
myths." Indeed, so many and different things are 
told, a,sked, and expected of them, that when the 
Rig- Veda had lost its living actuality, and commen- 
tators went to work on it, they were fairly puzzled 
to determine their original nature, /. e., the natural 
powers or phenomena which they represent. For 
they are not only horsemen (or more probably 
" descendants of the horse," since they themselves 
never ride, but drive their own chariots like the 
other gods) — they are also the physicians of gods 
and men, workers of miracles, rescuers from storms, 
best men at weddings, protectors of love and conju- 
gal life. This is certainly confusing ; and no less so 
are the answers given by different commentators to 
the query : " Who — or rather what — are the Ash- 
vins ? " Yet some indications we owe them which 
helped our scholars in their researches ; but a care- 
ful and minute study of the Rig texts has, as usual, 
proved the surest guide, and the question may now 
be considered as settled. 

34. The Ashvins' connection with the Horse 
(ashva) gives assurance of their heavenly luminous 
nature, and this is confirmed by the many epithets 
conferred on them. Like their sister Ushas, they are 
beautiful, gracious, bright, swift, immortal, young, 
though ancient. This latter feature alone would 
point to a regularly recurring phenomenon of the 
morning. Then, they are the earliest risers and 
arrive the first at the morning sacrifice, ahead oi the 



THE STORM-MYTH. 23 I 

Dawn, who is said to come immediately after them ; 
the worshipper, to greet them with his song has to 
get up before the dawn ; and they are asked to come 
to the house on their chariot " to which the twilight 
is yoked," for the sacrifice held " at the first lighting 
up of the dawn." Indeed they come earlier still ; 
their chariot appears** at the end of the night," and 
they are invoked also " in the last watch of night," 
as well as ** at break of day " — two moments, to be 
sure, which come very close together ; with the 
difference, however, that at the former it is still 
dark and at the latter it is not quite light. They are 
" dispellers of darkness " and " killers of Raksha- 
sas " like all luminous beings ; they " open the doors 
of the fast-closed stable rich in cows " (the Dawns, or 
the rays of the Dawn). These things are explicitly 
said and repeated in numbers of texts,' and leave no 
doubt as to the original place of the Ashvins in the 
order of natural phenomena : they represent the twi- 
light hour which precedes the dawn, luminous, but 
not yet brilliant — a delicate touch quaintly expressed 
by giving them a team of gray asses — animals that 
are not quite horses and subdued in color. Not 
always though. Nothing is immutable in the Rig- 
Veda. So the chariot of the Ashvins is quite as often 
drawn by horses. One poet is struck by some fancy, 
some nice characteristic detail, and gives it. Another 
takes it up, or sets it aside, at his pleasure — or, for 
that matter, he does so himself. It is all a question 
of moods, not deliberate invention. 

' See for a large and convincing collection of them in Myriantheus' 
valuable monograph Die Afvins. 



232 VEDIC INDIA. 

35. The most decisive witness in favor of this 
identification of the Ashvins with the morning twi- 
light, we find in this thoroughly Vedic riddle : 
" When the dark cow [Night] sits among the ruddy 
cows [the rays of the Dawn], I invoke you, Ashvins, 
Sons of the Sky," /. e., " when night has not quite 
gone and morning is just coming." Possibly it was 
this text which clinched the question for Yaska, one 
of the great native commentators, who in his catalogiie 
raisonnd of Vedic deities (the Niriiktd), after men- 
tioning the opinions of other students, gives as his 
own that 

" Their time is after the (latter) half of the night when the (space's) 
becoming light is resisted (by darkness) ; for the middlemost Ashvin, 
(the one between darkness and light) shares in darkness, whilst (the 
other) who is of a solar nature — ddiiya — shares in light." ' 

This also explains why there should be two 
Ashvins, twins. For twilight, the well-named, is of 
a complicated and essentially dual nature : be- 
ginning in darkness, ending in light. Hence, too, 
there is a difference between the brothers. Yaska, 
in the passage partly quoted above, says that " one 
[of course the elder] pervades everything with moist- 
ure, the other with light," Again, one is a hero 
and conqueror (he who stands the brunt of the first 
fight with darkness), and the other is the wealthy, 
fortunate Son of the Sky (whose time is when the 
fight is won, of which good news he is the bearer, 

' Translation of Professor Goldstiicker. The words in parentheses 
are put in by the translator to relieve the, to us, obscure conciseness 
of the Sanskrit original. 



THE STORM-MYTH. 233 

while the treasures of returning Hght begin to be 
revealed). Still the two moments are so close to- 
gether that the twins are regarded as inseparable, 
and compared to all sorts of things which go in 
pairs — the two eyes, the two ears, the two breasts, 
a bird and his mate, two wheels, etc., etc. In the 
course of time, a certain spirit of symmetry asserts 
itself, and the ritual decrees that the Ashvins shall 
be invoked twice, morning and evening, making 
them to personate both the twilight before sunrise 
and that after sunset — though in express contradic- 
tion to the following text (V., 77, 2) : '* Invoke the 
Ashvins in the morning; the evening is not the time 
for gods — it is displeasing to them " (naturally, since 
the gods are devas, " bright "). It will be seen how 
easily this could lead to identify the Twins, one with 
the morning twilight, the other with the evening 
twilight, — and even with Day and Night, — which 
has been done repeatedly, contrary to the very 
essence of the myth, which makes them inseparable, 
not alternate. Ritualism at last prevails entirely, 
and we find — still in the Rig-Veda — a third invoca- 
tion of the Ashvins at noon, evidently in accord 
with the three daily offerings. This is the beginning 
of confusion, and affords us at the same time a 
glimpse of the stratification of periods in the Rig- 
Veda — like that in the Avesta — resulting in the 
obliteration, or at least blurring, of the original con- 
ceptions. 

36. Once we have succeeded in determining the 
elementary nature of the joy-bringing Twins, we also 
have the key to their various acts and deeds, which 



234 VEDIC INDIA. 

are always gracious and beneficent, wherein they 
differ widely from most other gods. They are 
invariably mild, helpful, merciful. They are the 
great Physicians, who heal the sick, make the lame 
to walk, the blind to see. But their patients are 
always the same : the Old Sun, who reaches the goal 
of his long day's journey weary and sick unto death 
— when the foe he has fought and vanquished, grim 
Darkness, at last overcomes and blinds him — and 
who is made young again and vigorous, and seeing, 
by the returning light which the Ashvins — the morn- 
ing twilight — conquer and bring ; or else it is the 
Old Dawn — the evening gloaming — who runs the 
same dangers, undergoes the same infirmities and de- 
cay, and is led forth, rejuvenated and radiant, by her 
ever youthful brothers. They are best men at wed- 
dings, protectors of love and marriage, because they 
bring the Dawn-bride before the face of her Sun- 
lover, or reunite the separated lovers. On one 
occasion, indeed, Ushas is said to have mounted on 
the Ashvins' car — (was it not on the memorable 
occasion when her own was shattered by the un- 
gallant Indra?) — and to have chosen them for her 
husbands. — They are rescuers from stormy waters, 
because night is a dark and stormy waste of waters, 
full of dangers and monsters, into which the worn- 
out Sun fatally sinks, and in which he might perish, 
did not the ever helpful heralds of Light take him 
into their swiftly flying ship and carry him safely 
across to the other — the bright — shore, from which 
he rises aloft, in fully restored vigor and splendor. — 
And will not those who do all these kindly ofifices, 



THE STORM-MYTH, 235 

who work these miracles for gods, do the same for 
suppliant men ? We know that every myth ends by 
coming down to earth and being humanized. It 
will strike every one how many and varied stories 
could and must have been spun out of this pecu- 
liarly attractive and prolific myth of the Ashvins. 

37. We cannot close the gallery of the Vedic 
Beings of Light without devoting a few lines to one 
who, though holding a rather modest rank, shares in 
their honors, and is always affectionately and rever- 
ently remembered. We mean PUSHAN, pre-emi- 
nently a friend of men, and whose career is one of 
almost homely usefulness. The great French Vedic 
scholar, A. Bergaigne, sums it up in one brief page, 
so lucid and comprehensive, that we cannot do better 
than reproduce it : 

" Pushan is, first of all, a pastoral and agricultural deity. He is 
requested to direct the furrow ; his hand is armed with the ox-goad ; 
he is principally the guardian of cattle, who prevents them from 
straying, and finds them again when they get lost. He is, therefore, 
prayed to follow the cows, to look after them, to keep them from 
harm, to bring them home safe and sound. His care extends to all 
sorts of property, which he guards or finds again when lost. He is 
also the finder of hidden treasure, — cows first on the list, always. 
Lastly, Pushan guides men, not only in their search for lost or hidden 
things, but on all their ways generally. In a word, he is the god of 
wayfarers as well as of husbandmen and herdsmen. He is called 
' Lord of the Path,' he is prayed to ' lay out the roads,' to remove 
from them foes and hindrances, to guide his worshippers by the safest 
roads, as 'knowing all the abodes.' ..." 

A very human field of action — almost a picture of 
rural life. But all the foregoing pages have been 
written to little purpose, if it does not strike the 



236 VEDIC INDIA. 

reader at once that it is a reflection of the usual 
heavenly pastoral, — itself, of course, originally copied 
from the earthly model. We are, by this time, suf- 
ficiently familiar with the aerial pastures and roads, 
along which the heavenly cattle — whether Cloud- 
Kine or Kine of Light — roam and stray, get stolen 
or lost, and are found again. So do we know who 
they are that guard, and follow, and find them, and 
bring them back. But not these alone are heaven's 
"hidden treasure." Agni lies hidden and is found, 
and so is Soma, whom Pushan is expressly said to 
have brought back " like a strayed ox " ; and imme- 
diately : " Pushan, abounding in rays, found the 
king, who lay hidden, and who now shines forth on 
the sacrificial grass." This at once establishes 
Pushan's claim to a place in the highest heavens, at 
the very source of light itself. It is there that he is 
the lover of his sister Surya, the Sun-maiden, and 
sails his golden ships across the aerial ocean. 

So much for this gentle deity's naturalistic aspects. 
His loftier symbolical character will become appar- 
ent in connection with a different — and later devel- 
oped — order of ideas.' 

* See A. Bergaigne, La Religion Vifdique, vol. ii., pp. 420-430. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE RIG-VEDA: LESSER AND LATER GODS. — STORY 
MYTHS. 

I. Classification, on the whole, is unsatisfactory. 
The worst of it is, the things classified won't dove- 
tail nicely, but are sure to overlap both ways or to 
fall short. Yet, when one has on hand an over- 
whelming mass of material, and is, moreover, limited 
to a scant selection from it, one would flounder 
helplessly without the assistance of such a guide, 
even though it be lame and to some extent mis- 
leading. This is a disadvantage under which all 
great subjects labor. And of all great subjects 
there is none both vaster and more complex than 
the Rig-Veda ; none that grows and expands more 
bewilderingly under handling ; none that more 
elusively resists classification and — to use a very 
modern yet already somewhat trite expression — 
popularization. For popularization means : present- 
ing the results of the work of specialists in an un- 
technical form, intelligible and attractive to the 
large mass of average, general readers. And how 
are "results" to be presented where so very few 
have been finally established ? in a branch of learn- 

237 



238 VEDIC INDIA. 

ing which is in the very fervor of research, discovery, 
comparing theories, correcting errors or hasty con- 
clusions, — so that it is a current saying among 
brethren of the craft that no book on Ancient India 
can reach its last chapter without the first ones being 
rewritten.' Method, therefore, is, after all, the best 
safeguard, and careful sorting and sifting — classify- 
ing in short ; under reservation and with frequent 
qualifying of one's own definitions. 

2. To begin with the title of this chapter. It 
should be well understood that the adjectives " lesser 
and later " are not meant to apply to one and the 
same deities, or at least not always. The more a 
divine person goes into abstraction, and the farther 
it becomes removed from the natural phenomenon 
which it originally represented, or the more it accen- 
tuates certain details of that phenomenon, the later, 
as a rule, we can place it. Thus the high moral con- 
ception of the Sky-god Varuna cannot but have 
been evolved out of that of the primeval Dyaus, the 
material visible sky. Again, when we meet three 
goddesses (very subordinate and rarely mentioned 
in the hymns), representing the three phases of the 
moon — the growing, the full, and the waning, — we 
may be very sure that the worship of the moon itself 
preceded them. Though of course it is never pos- 
sible even to suggest a particular time for such 

' The truth of this saying the author can vouch for from experi- 
ence. Such scholars as may glance at the present volume and be 
inclined to fault-finding, will therefore please consider that, with the 
best-meant efforts to " keep up to date," a book, to be a book, must 
be printed some time, and by that fact, in the present case, of neces- 
sity fall behind. 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 239 

evolution where there is absolutely no chronology — 
or at least the nearest approach we can make to one 
is to conclude, from internal evidence alone, that 
such or such parts of the Rig-Veda, such or such 
hymns, deities, conceptions, are " very early," 
" early," " later," " very late," within the period — 
unknown to us with any precision, but certainly em- 
bracing several, probably many, centuries — covered 
by the collection. Superlatives, like " earliest and 
latest," are out of the question where the limit 
escapes us at either end. 

3. As to the designation, " lesser gods," it requires 
to be qualified even more. In the first place, by 
what standards do we know the lesser from the 
greater? We have only one, a very simple one: the 
place each occupies in the Rig-Veda — the number of 
hymns addressed to each, the frequency with which 
a given deity is mentioned in hymns addressed to 
others. It seems a crude standard ; yet on the whole 
it is not deceptive. Judged by it, Indra, Agni, Soma, 
at once stand out as the three kings of the Vedic 
Pantheon — and so they are. It would seem as though 
the tone of the hymns — the degree of fervor in the 
invocations and praise, the qualities and power 
ascribed to the different deities, should go for some- 
thing in deciding such a question ; but they hardly 
do, on account of the way the old Rishis have, as 
already noticed, of exalting the god they address, 
for the moment, above all the others, and ascribing 
to all in turn the same greater cosmical functions, such 
as spreading out the heavens, supporting the universe, 
keeping apart heaven, earth, etc., even to creating 



240 VEDIC INDIA. 

Other gods, or, at all events, being first among them. 
The other standard, therefore, is the safest. But it 
stands only for the time, whatever that was, when 
the selection of the hymns was made, and — to borrow 
a word from other theologies — the canon of the Rig- 
Veda was established. That time was preceded by a 
past which we have no means of fathoming, and fol- 
lowed by a future as vast, in which the religion of 
the Rig-Veda was to pass through all the evolutions 
of Brahmanism and Hinduism. Some of the persons 
and myths of the Vedic Pantheon, therefore, are very 
old, while some again are just beginning to assert 
themselves. To the former class, probably, belong 
among others Parjanya and Rudra. If so, the great- 
ness of Rudra, as we saw, is in abeyance in the Rig- 
Veda, but it was to rise again and reach a higher 
climax than ever, when he became the dread Shiva — 
the Destroyer — of the great Brahmanic Triad. 

4. Of the second class the most notable is ViSHNU, a 
solar deity and form of Agni, who holds a very modest 
place in the Rig-Veda, where he appears as a friend 
and comrade of Indra, stands by his side at the kill- 
ing of Vritra, and helps him to " open the stable 
and let out the cows." One peculiar trait is attached 
to him, and mentioned whenever he is addressed or 
spoken of : he is the god of the three strides. Purely 
naturalistic interpreters think of the expression as re- 
ferring to the strides of the Sun-god to the three 
stations of his course, at morning, noon, and evening. 
But closer study shows that there is a far deeper 
significance behind the seemingly simple myth — the 
three strides of Vishnu cover or pervade, earth, 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 24 1 

heaven, and the highest world of all, invisible to 
mortals, as clearly intimated by the verse : " We can 
from the earth know two of thy spaces ; thou alone, 
O Vishnu, knowest thine own highest abode " (VIL, 
99, i). However that may be, nothing in the Rig- 
Veda presages the coming greatness of the god, the 
future second person — the Preserver — of the Brah- 
manic Triad, the rival of Shiva in the devotion of 
millions of worshippers, till all Brahmanic India 
became divided into two immense and fanatical sects, 
the Shivites and the Vishnuites. It appears, how. 
ever, that the earliest beginnings of these sects may 
be faintly traced as far back as the Rig- Veda, from 
a passage in one of the so-called historical hymns 
which relate the early struggles and wars of the Pen- 
jab Aryas.* 

5. The god — Savitar — to whom is addressed the 
Gayatri, the most holy text in the whole Rig- Veda, 
to this day the daily prayer of millions of human 
beings — cannot properly be classed among the 
"lesser gods " ; but that he belongs among the later 
ones is shown by the complexity and by certain 
abstruse aspects of his being. That he is first and 
foremost a solar deity goes without saying. But 
a very puzzling fact about him is that he is some- 
times identified with the sun — Surya, — and some- 
times expressly distinguished from him — ^or it. 
Savitar is, as Muir says, "pre-eminently the golden 
deity " — golden-eyed, golden-armed, golden-handed, 
driving a golden car along ancient, dustless paths, 
beautifully laid out through space. There are 

' See ch. viii., p. 303. 
16 



242 VEDTC INDIA. 

passages in which the two names — Savitar or Surya — 
are used convertibly and indiscriminately; for in- 
stance : " God Savitar raised his banner high, pro- 
viding hght for all the world ; Surya has filled earth 
and heaven and the vast ' middle region ' {anta- 
riksha, the atmosphere) with beams." They are 
unmistakably separated when Surya is called Savitar's 
beautiful bird (IV., 14, 2) ; or Savitar is said to be 
" invested with the rays of Surya," or to " bring 
Surya." Surya of course, in such cases, is to be taken 
as a common noun, standing for the material sun, 
and Savitar assumes towards it the relation of a 
higher being directing its movements, disposing of 
and distributing its light. 

6. Another pecuharity of Savitar is that he repre- 
sents not only the bright sun of the golden day, but 
also the invisible sun of night, i.e., the sun in the 
mysterious, invisible land between West and East. 
He is associated as much with light as with darkness 
— the friendly darkness that brings repose and sleep 
to all that breathes. There are indeed hints of the 
kind in the descriptions of Surya, whose mares, " the 
Harits, draw without end now the bright light and 
now the dark" (I., 115, 5), and who seems to have 
a night-horse, which reverses the course of his 
chariot ' ; but they are few and vague ; while the 
semi-diurnal, semi-nocturnal nature of Savitar is one 
of that deity's essential characteristics. Those out- 
stretched hands of his, which shower light upon the 
worlds, also " firmly guide the starry host " ; after 

1 See the chapter on Etasha (the horse in question) in A. Ber- 
gaigne's La Religion V^dique^ vol. ii-, pp. 330-333. 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 243 

arousing all creatures in the morning — " those with 
two feet and with four " — they bring them to rest 
in the evening. In all the hymns addressed to 
this god, which are held in eI peculiarly noble and 
lofty strain, this great and beneficent function of 
his is gratefully mentioned. 

" He who hastens hither through the dark aerial space, who lays 
to rest whatever mortal is, or immortal, God Savitar on his golden 
chariot comes towards us, surveying all creatures." (I., 35, 2.) 

"... Where is Surya now? Who knows it? Over which 
heaven do his rays extend ? " (I-, 35, 7-) 

"With golden hands comes hastening Savitar the god, pursuing 
busily his work 'twixt heaven and earth ; he drives away oppression, 
leads Surya forth, through the dark realm of air he hastens up to 
heaven." (I., 35, g.) 

Here we see that, when Savitar comes in the even- 
ing, the sun becomes invisible and shines on some 
other world ; when he comes in the morning, he 
brings back the sun. The difference between the 
two deities is made very plain, and we can best sum 
it up by saying that though, in translating, " Surya " 
can always be rendered by "the Sun," "Savitar" 
cannot. 

The " Evening Hymn " to Savitar (II., 38) is one 
of the finest in the collection. 

" . . . . 2. — The god his mighty hands, his arms outstretches in 
heaven above, and all things here obey him ; to his commands the 
waters are attentive, and even the rushing wind subsides before him. 
3. — Driving his steeds, now he removes the harness and bids the wan- 
derer rest him from his journey ; he checks the serpent-smiter's ' eager 
onset ; at Savitar's command the kindly night comes. 4. — The weaver 
rolls her growing web together, and in the midst the workman leaves 

* A bird of prey. 



244 VEDIC INDIA. 

his labors ; the god arises and divides the time, [night from day], — 
God Savitar appears, the never-resting. 5. — In every place where 
mortals have their dvv^elling, the house-fire far and vi'ide sheds forth 
its radiance, the mother gives her son the fairest portion, because the 
god has given him desire to eat. 6. — Now he returns who had gone 
forth for profit ; for home the longing wanderer's heart is yearning, 
and each, his task half finished, homeward journeys : this is the 
heavenly Inciter's ordinance. . . . 8. — The restless darting 
fish, at fall of evening, seeks where he may his refuge in the waters ; 
his nest the egg-born seeks, their stall the cattle; each in its place, 
the god divides the creatures." ' 

7. So far the hymn might be addressed to the 
visible sun, " to him who clothes himself in all colors " 
when he climbs up the heights of heaven, and " wraps 
himself in a brown-red mantle" as he descends from 
them ; but Savitar is decidedly the invisible nocturnal 
sun, when the poet expressly says : " Thou dost 
journey through the night from West to East." 
Yet all this transparent naturalism by no means ex- 
hausts the complex and somewhat mystical personal- 
ity of this god. He has also a lofty moral side ; for 

' From the German translation in Kaegi and Geldner's Siebenzig 
Lieder des Rig- Veda, English version of R. Arrowsmith in the Eng- 
lish edition of Kaegi's Rig- Veda. — Many readers will probably be 
struck by the great similarity, not only in the spirit, but even in the 
separate images, of this hymn, and the lovely Greek poem beginning 
''' Hespere, paiita fereis," which has been so beautifully paraphrased 
by Byron in a famous stanza of Don Juan (Canto III., cvii.) : 
O Hesperus ! thou bringest all good things — 

Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer. 
To the young bird the parents' brooding wings. 

The welcome stall to the o'erlabor'd steer ; 
Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings, 
Whate'er our household gods protect of dear. 
Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest ; 
Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast. 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 245 

while Surya is only asked to "declare men sinless" 
before the Adityas, Savitar is implored by the repent- 
ant sinner in strains exactly similar to those ad- 
dressed to the great Aditya, Varuna himself. 

" Whatever offence we may have committed against the race of 
gods, through feebleness of understanding, or through violence after 
the manner of men — against gods and also against men, — in spite of 
all, O Savitar, take from us the sin." (IV., 54, 3.) 

Considered all in all, and taking into account also 
the etymology of the name, i. e., the meaning of the 
root from which it is derived and which is constantly 
alluded to in the characteristic epithets — Inciter, 
Enlivener, and the like — bestowed on the god, Savi- 
tar appears to represent pre-eminently the life-giving, 
generative force of nature, chiefly, but not exclu- 
sively, as manifested in the action of the sun. These 
qualities would easily be transferred to the spiritual 
world, when Savitar would naturally become the 
Enlightener, the quickener of the spirit, who, as he 
wakes all creatures to life and work, also wakes up 
the intellect, the moral faculties of men. This view 
also fully justifies such lofty epithets as "Lord of 
Creatures \^prajdpati\ having [and perhaps giving] 
all forms " {vishvartlpa), which it would be difificult to 
fit to a mere solar deity.^ As the worship of Fire 
in all its visible and invisible forms and abodes is 
really at the bottom of the Vedic religion, and the 
Sun itself is at times regarded only as one of its forms, 
Savitar could scarcely fail to be more or less identified 
with him, either as Sun or as Lightning. Many 

^ Even Savitar's golden chariot is said to be vi3kvardj>a, omniform. 



246 VEDIC INDIA. 

passages point to this abstruser mystical doctrine, as 
well as the name of Apam Napat (Child of the 
Waters) — Agni's own surname — which is given him 
more than once. His connection with Soma and 
the Soma sacrifice is also beyond doubt, and he 
is said to have given immortality to the gods. 
The heavenly Soma being no other than the anirita 
or drink of immortality, this well accords with the 
nature of a vivifier and creator. 

8. There is a remarkable verse (III., 55, 19) which 
gives us the following startling combination : 

" TvASHTAR Savitar, the god of many forms [viskvanlpa], has 
produced and nourished all creatures, and all these beings are his 
own. . . . He created both the world-cups, [heaven and earth] ; 
all they are both filled with is his own." 

In this passage (and in one other where they 
appear joined together in the same way), one of 
these names would seem to be an epithet of the 
other, or else they are identical, i. c, two names 
of one and the same person. Yet Tvashtar in all 
other cases stands out alone as an independent, 
though not very clearly characterized, deity. He 
has been called somewhat sweepingly " the artificer 
of the gods," and that certainly covers one side of 
his nature to which his name alludes, as it is said 
to be derived, with a slight alteration, from a root 
meaning " to make, to construct." He is seldom 
mentioned in the hymns without some such epithet 
as " skilful-handed," " most cunning workman," and 
the like. For it was Tvashtar who forged Indra's 
thunderbolt, the golden, with a thousand points and 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 247 

a hundred edges, and who sharpened the axe of 
another god, Brahmanaspati, the " Lord of 
Prayer " ; it is he, '' the omniform," who gives their 
shapes to all living things, even to the unborn young 
of men and animals; he also knows the art of making 
the best cups from which the gods drink the Soma ; 
especially, he fashioned one wonderful sacrificial cup 
which was his pride of workmanship and with which 
he had a peculiar experience. 

9. There were three brothers, the RiBHUS — some 
say pupils of Tvashtar — who rivalled him in skill. 
They had fashioned Indra's chariot and horses, and 
the Ashvins' three-wheeled chariot ; they had re- 
juvenated the wonderful cow which produces all 
things at will ; nay, they made " the two Old Ones," 
their " two parents," young again. But they were 
not gods ; only pious men and sacrificers. Once 
Agni, the messenger of the gods, came to them and 
gave them this message : " Ye are to make four cups 
out of the one ; this is why I come hither. If ye 
perform this, ye will receive equal honors with the 
gods." They did perform the astounding feat, where- 
upon they boldly drove to heaven in their chariot, to 
" gracious Savitar's abode," where they received from 
him the gift of immortality, and consequently the 
right to partake of the heavenly Soma and to be in- 
vited to men's Soma-sacrifices. But Tvashtar was 
incensed at the liberty taken with his greatest work 
and chose to consider it a sacrilege ; he even pro- 
posed to the gods to '' kill these men " (of course 
before they had yet tasted the amrita), and was so 
mortified when his malice was baffled, that he slunk 



248 VEDIC INDIA. 

away and hid himself among " the gods' wives " (I., 
no and 161). 

10. *' Of what was made that one cup out of which 
you cunningly fashioned four?" This direct ques- 
tion is asked by one of the Rig poets (IV., 35, 4). 
It has been, and still is, asked by our scholars. But 
answered— that is another matter. The difificulty is 
in this case particularly great, because the person- 
ality of Tvashtar is almost too much blurred for 
recognition. He is evidently a very ancient god, 
fallen from his high estate, with a cycle of myths 
hopelessly incomplete and mutilated, and partly de- 
formed by later rehandling. Still it is said that 
** out of the clash of opinions springeth light " ; and 
after careful comparison of a score of interpretations, 
differing in some points, agreeing in others, the fol- 
lowing may be ventured upon as coming probably 
near to the mark, because offering a comparatively 
unstrained construction of the remarkable myth of 
Tvashtar and the Ribhus, and fitting tolerably well 
the various passages which touch on it. 

11. Tvashtar-Savitar-Vishvarupa — "the Om- 
niform * Maker and Vivifier " — was originally one 
divine person. Then — and this is a common and 
universal process of mythological multiplication — 
the single but threefold designation split itself into 
three separate ones. Men invoked now Tvashtar, 
now Savitar, till their original oneness was wellnigh 
obliterated ; even Vishvarupa — " omniform " or 
" multiform " — though an epithet not unfrequently 

' " Omniform " not only in the sense of assuming all forms, but of 
giving them, being, in Muir's words, the arch-type of all forms. 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 249 

bestowed on various deities, such as Agni, Soma, 
Indra, took an individuality of its own and became 
a son of Tvashtar who tends his cattle, and is one 
of Indra's most hated enemies. This is how thins^s 
stand in the Rig-Veda, where only two passages, by 
giving the complete combination of three names, 
revive an all but obliterated memory.' It is proba- 
ble that Tvashtar-Savitar was a Sky-god, whereupon 
Savitar retained all the gracious, vivifying qualities 
of a heavenly power specially connected with the 
beneficent Sun, while Tvashtar became his counter- 
part and represented the stern, baleful, and threat- 
ening aspects of the heavens, standing to Savitar 
much as Rudra to Varuna (see p. 209).'' Under 
this explanation it appears quite natural that Tvash- 
tar should be the special — and morose, grudging — 
keeper of the heavenly Soma. The sacrificial cup 
which he makes for the gods is, therefore, most 
probably — the Moon, " the bright bowl of Soma " 
(see p. 180). The Ribhus are the genii of the Sea- 
sons. It is very possible that originally there was 
also only one Ribhu — the Year, who then easily split 
himself into three brothers — the three seasons ; for 
the Vedic Aryas divided the year into only three 
seasons — the rainy, the hot, and the fall. The Rib- 
hus' great feat consisted in dividing the one Soma 

' Hillebrandt {^Vedische Mythologie, i., p. 514) remarks of Tvash- 
tar : " All that is said of him warrants the supposition that we have 
before us the ruins of a large cycle of myths, which, having been 
originated outside of the Rig- Veda tribes, did not greatly arouse their 
interest." 

^ May not, at some untraceable time, the three names together have 
been joint descriptive predicates of the primeval Sky-god, Dyaus ? 



250 VEDIC INDIA. 

bowl into four — the phases of the moon : the grow- 
ing, the full, the waning, and the dark.* The fin- 
ishing touch to this myth is the twelve days' rest 
which they took " in the house of Savitar." These 
are the twelve intercalary days added by the early 
Indian astronomers to the 354 days of the lunar 
year, at the time of the winter solstice,'^ a period of 
rest during which the sun and the seasons them- 
selves seem to stand still, awaiting the beginning of 
the new year, when they commence their work, " pro- 
ducing vegetation on the mountains and waters in 
the valleys." The other magic feats of the Ribhus 
are as easily explained. It is the seasons that fashion 
Indra's chariot and horses, for the great thunder- 
storms come only at certain times of the year; they 
restore the youth of their old parents. Heaven and 
Earth ; likewise that of the ever-productive cow — 
the Earth. As to Vishvarupa, a monster with three 
heads, which are all struck off by Indra, he clearly 
represents the " omniform " clouds, which may well 
be the offspring of the Sky regarded as a malignant 
being, an evil magician. 

12. But it is not only in the person of his son that 
Tvashtar experiences Indra's hostility. He is him- 
self the object of it, chiefly as the grudging keeper of 

^ This is the explanation of Hillebrandt ; only he makes out Tvash- 
tar to be the moon itself. Ludwig, on the other hand, agrees with 
him about the Ribhus being the seasons, but he sees in Tvashtar the 
sun, and the cup to him is the year, which the Ribhus divide into the 
four seasons. It will be seen that neither of these theories " fits" 
so well as a whole and in details as that given in the text. 

^ The solar year of 365 days was introduced much later, probably 
in connection with the worship of Vishnu. 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 25 1 

the heavenly Soma, in the use of which Indra, as 
we know, brooks no stinting. From the confused 
and fragmentary accounts of the god's childhood 
and early exploits, we see that he possessed himself 
of the coveted beverage by violence, and then pro- 
ceeded to vent his ire and try his newborn strength 
upon the keeper of it, whom he overpowered and 
hurled down, seizing him by one foot. (See p. 204.) 
For Tvashtar is Indra's father. Two texts estab- 
lish the fact beyond a doubt : 

" Tvashtar fashioned for him the thunderbolt to be wielded in 
battle." (I., 61, 6.) 

" The thunderbolt which his father fashioned for him some time 
ago just suits his arm." (II., 17, 6.) 

Indra, scarce born, drinks the Soma in the highest 
heaven (III., 32, 10). The mother who bore him 
poured it out for him in the house of his great 
father (III., 48, 2). Scarcely has the babe tasted 
the stimulating beverage, when his strength grows 
on him : 

"Vigorous, victorious, of might transcendant, he shaped his body 
to his will ; just born, he overcame Tvashtar, stole the Soma, and 
drank it in the vats." (III., 48, 4.) 

" Who made thy mother a widow ? " asks the poet 
(IV., 18, 12). Evidently Indra himself, by slaying 
his father. — " Who wanted to kill thee while resting 
or travelling?" Probably Tvashtar, in anger at 
being robbed of the Soma. — " What god came to thy 
assistance when thou didst seize thy father by the 
foot and hurl him down ? " 

Here we have the whole myth, complete and clear; 



252 VEDIC INDIA. 

only, after the manner of the Rig-Veda, we do not 
get it in a connected form, but must fish it out in 
bits from texts out of the different books. There is 
nothing there that does not fit in beautifully with 
the identification of Tvashtar as a Sky-god of sombre 
and malevolent aspect, supplanted in the devotion 
of the Indian Aryas by the more popular — and more 
immediately useful — Warrior-god. Many more short 
texts could be picked out which would confirm this 
remarkable myth, but could not make it more com- 
plete. And what more natural than that the Light- 
ning — for the god who wields the thunderbolt is 
nothing else in reality — should be the son of the 
frowning, angry sky ? 

13. But we have not done with Tvashtar yet. 
He figures in another story-myth, as remarkable as 
that of the cup, and one that has given as much food 
to disputed interpretations, both among native com- 
mentators and modern European scholars. It is the 
myth of the birth of the Ashvins. The story is told 
completely, though, as usual, not without obscurity, 
in the following too famous passage (X., 17, 1-2) : 

" Tvashtar makes a wedding for his daughter and all the world 
comes to it. The mother of Yama, the wedded wife of the great 
Vivasvat, disappeared. — They [the gods] hid the immortal one from 
mortals and having created another just lilce her, they gave her to 
Vivasvat. Then SaranyO bore the two Ashvins and, having done so, 
she deserted the two twins," ' 

' " Or the two pairs of twins." This would include Yama's twin- 
sister YamI, though she is not named in the text. She does, however, 
appear once in the Rig, in a most peculiar dialogue with Yama. But 
this piece is of very uncertain date, and bears the imprint of quite late 
Brahmanism. So that Yami may very well have been a subsequent 
addition, for symmetry's sake, and also because the name of Yama 
generally means " a twin." 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 253 

We already know that Yama was a son of Vivasvat. 
We now find that the Ashvins were Vivasvat's sons 
also, and grandsons of Tvashtar, and learn that their 
mother was that ungracious god's daughter. So far 
we know who Saranyu was. But what she was is the 
question that has been so differently answered by 
the various schools of learned mythologists. " The 
Dawn," say those who are inclined to see the Sun 
and Dawn in most heavenly couples. " The Storm- 
cloud," reply those who think that the atmospheric 
drama absorbed the attention of the Penjab Aryas 
almost to the exclusion of other natural phenomena.' 
Neither of these interpretations is exempt from a 
certain lameness.- For the Dawn can hardly be the 
mother of the early twilight ^\\\q\\ precedes her, even 
allowing for Vedic inconsistencies, though there is 
nothing amiss with the myth which makes her the 
Ashvins' sister or even their bride, who on one occa- 
sion is said to have mounted their chariot. Again, 
the Stormcloud seems to have even less to do with 
a phenomenon of light : the two belong to different 
worlds — the Atmosphere and the Sky. But Sara- 
nyu's name is too suggestive : it means " the fleet," 
" the running," and nothing occurred to the first in- 
vestigators that it would fit, except the Dawn or the 
Stormcloud. A younger scholar proposes a far more 
plausible solution : 

" When we are told," he says, " that the Ashvins arrive at the end 
or in the last watch of night and gradually spread over the whole 

' As leaders of the first-named school we may consider Professors 
Max Miiller and Angelo de Gubernatis, while in the van of the latter 
stands the no less eminent Adalbert Kuhn. 



254 VEDIC INDIA. 

horizon, dispersing or destroying the darkness and bringing daylight 
to all creatures, we surely cannot take either the Dawn or the Storm- 
cloud for their mother, but must, in the order of nature, look for some 
other phenomenon which precedes the dawn and even the twilight 
represented by the Ashvins, and that can be no other than — Night. 
The adjective saranyii should therefore be completed by the noun 
nakie, and then interpreted as ' the fleet night ' (in coming and in 
vanishing)." ' 

14. That the Night should be the daughter of the 
Sky in its unamiable aspect (Tvashtar) and the 
mother of the Twilight Twins, is satisfactory ; that 
she should first be the mother of Yama, — if Yama 
be, as Hillebrandt so ably contends, the Moon, — is 
highly so. As to her husband, " the great Vivasvat," 
he is often, and in post-vedic times always, identified 
with the Sun ; not always or necessarily, however, in 
the Rig- Veda. For " Vivasvat," like most proper 
names, is originally an adjective, signifying " bright, 
luminous." Now there are other bright and luminous 
things besides the sun ; what they are, the context 
in each separate instance must help us to find out. 
And the context of many passages in the hymns 
show beyond a doubt that Vivasvat can also repre- 
sent the bright, luminous Sky. Here are some : 

" Matarishvan, the messenger [of the gods] brought Agnifrom afar, 
from vivasvat [the Sky]." (VI., 8, 4.) 

"With your chariot, fleeter than thought, which the Ribhus 
fashioned, come O Ashvins, — the chariot at the harnessing of which 

' Dr. L. Myriantheus, Die Afviits oder Arischen Dioskurett (1876), 
p. 57. He points in confirmation to the Homeric expression " the fleet 
night," and to the fact that Leda, the mother of the Greek Dioskouroi 
(the " Sons of Zeus " — the exact equivalent of the Aryan ndpaid-diva, 
the " Sons of the Sky "), has long ago been identified with Night. 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 255 

the Daughter of the Sky [the Dawn] is born, also Day and Night, 
both splendid, from [or out of] Vivasvat [the bright, luminous sky]." 
(X.,39, 12.)' 

And especially : 

"After staying overnight with Vivasvat, O Ashvins, come hither 
to drink Soma, drawn by our songs." (X., 46, 13.) 

Vivasvat being their father, it is not strange that 
they should stay with him ; in other words, the twi- 
light may be imagined as waiting overnight in the 
sky before appearing.* 

To sum up : Saranyu, the fleet Night, is the daugh- 
ter of Tvashtar, the stern and frowning Sky, who 
gives her to wife to Vivasvat, the luminous Sky ; she 
becomes the mother of Yama, the Moon ; then 
the gods conceal her, the immortal, from mortals : 
the Night vanishes ; but, in doing so, she gives birth 
to the Twilight Twins, the Ashvins, whom she per- 
force must leave as well as her first-born. The myth 
is simple and transparent enough ; only the second 
or substituted wife remains unaccounted for. But 
the commentators tell us that she gave birth to 
Manu, the mythical sage and sacrificer, the progeni- 
tor of the human race, thus formulating the ancient 

' This alludes to the later and already corrupt belief in the Ashvins 
coming both in the morning and at night. 

^ See Myriantheus, Die A^vins, pp. 4-13. We may as well mention 
here the curious custom of giving to sacrificers, by courtesy, the name 
of vivasvat. By the act of sacrificing, the worshipper enters into 
communion with the gods, becomes, for the time being, one of them. 
Thus in Egypt, every man received after death, by courtesy, the title 
of " Osiris," because it was hoped he had attained blessedness in the 
bosom of the god. 



256 VEDIC INDIA. 

belief in the heavenly origin of mankind.' Who 
she was, i. e., what she was meant to represent, 
has never been found out. The myth itself, how- 
ever, in the attempt at explanation, was handled and 
rehandled, added to and ornamented, until it became 
almost hopelessly obscure, and it was necessary to 
return to the original Rig texts, and them only, in 
order to restore it to its meaning in the order of 
natural phenomena. 

15. There is another mysterious being, another 
mother of twins, whose name, Sarama, shows her 
to be somewhat akin in nature to Saranyu — also a 
" fleet one," a " runner." With her offspring, the 
twin Sarameyas dogs, the messengers of Yama, 
we are already acquainted (see p. iSa).** She herself 
appears to have been Indra's special messenger, em- 
ployed by him on diplomatic and scouting errands. 
We have an unusually detailed and complete narra- 
tive of one such expedition in the Rig-Veda. The 
Panis — the avaricious traders and robbers — had 
stolen the milk kine on which the race of men 
chiefly depends for nourishment. Indra prepared 
to go to their rescue in company with Brihaspati — 
the Lord of Prayer — and the nine Angiras, the 
heavenly singers and sacrificers. But he first sent 

^ Manu is often used simply in the sense of " man." The etymo- 
logical meaning is " the thinker." The other habitual designation of 
our race is " mortal," as opposed to the '* immortals" — gods. Man, 
therefore, was to the old Aryas " he who thinks " and " he who dies " 
— surely a definition as profound as comprehensive. 

"^ Probably on account of her connection with these dogs, Sarama 
was subsequently made out to be herself a dog. There is, however, 
no allusion to this in the Rig-Veda. 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 2^7 

Sarama to reconnoitre. She went " on the right 
path " and found the strong stable, a cave in the 
rock, through a cleft of which she heard the cows' 
lowing. She went on until she came across the 
Pani-robbers, between whom and herself there en- 
sued the following dialogue, one of the most re- 
markable pieces in the Rig-Veda (X., io8). The 
Panis begin : 

The Panis : " With what intention did Sarama reach this place? 
for the way is far and leads tortuously away. What is thy wish with 
us? Didst travel safely? [or " how was the night ? "] How didst 
thou cross the waters of the Rasa ? " ^ 

Sarama / " I came sent as the messenger of Indra, desiring, O 
Panis, your great treasures. This preserved me from the fear of 
crossing, and thus I crossed the waters of the Rasa." 

T//e Panis : " Who is he? what looks he like, this Indra, whose 
herald you have hastened from afar? Let him come here, we will 
make friends with him, then he may be the herdsman of our cows." 

Sarama : " Ye cannot injure him, but he can injure, whose herald 
I have hastened from afar. Deep rivers cannot overwhelm him ; 
you, Panis, soon shall be cut down by Indra." 

The Panis : " Those cows, O Sarama, which thou cam'st to seek, 
are flying round the ends of the sky. O darling, who would give up 
to thee without a fight ? for, in truth, our weapons too are sharp." 

Saramd : " Not hurtful are your words, O Panis, and though your 
wretched bodies were arrow-proof, though the way to you be hard to 
go, little will Brihaspati care." 

The Panis : " That store, O Sarama, is fast within the rock — 't is 
full with horses, cows, and treasures ; Panis watch it who are good 
watchers ; thou art come in vain. . . ." 

Saramd : " The Rishis will come here, fired with Soma, Ayasia, 
and the Angiras, the Nine. They will divide this stable of cows. 
Then the Panis will spit out this speech [wish it unspoken]." 

The Panis : " Of a surety, Sarama, thou art come hither driven 

^ The Rasa — a mythical river, deep and dangerous : the waters of 
Darkness or of Death. 
17 



258 VEDIC INDIA. 

by the violence of the gods : let us make thee our sister ; go not 
away again. We will give thee part of the cows, O darling." 

Saramd : "I know nothing of brotherhood or sisterhood; Indra 
knows it and the awful Angiras. They seemed to me anxious for 
their cows when I came ; therefore get away from here, O Panis, get 
far away." 

Sarama's scouting having proved more successful 
than her diplomatical effort, she returned to those 
who sent her, to act as guide. Swift and sure of 
foot, she walked before them, taking them along the 
broad and ancient heavenly path which leads to the 
one goal. As they approached the rock, which she 
was first to reach, the loud singing of the Angiras 
mingled with the lowing of the cows in the cave. 
Indra and Brihaspati now came up ; the rock opened 
with a great crash under the blows of Indra's mace, 
and Brihaspati led forth the cows, driving them 
along as the wind drives the storm-cloud. The 
Panis were dismayed ; Vala, the cave-demon, 
mourned for his beautiful cows as the tree mourns 
for its foliage when it is stripped bare by frost.' 

16. This beautifully and dramatically developed 
story-myth speaks for itself, and it is only the identi- 
fication of Sarama, which gives rise to the usual 
difference of opinions. She, too, has been said to be 
the Dawn, and the Stormcloud ; but she is so spe- 
cially characterized as the precursor of a violent 
thunder-storm that, if a naturalistic interpretation 

' The narrative is given in words taken from the Rig-Veda. Only 
the passages are so short and scattered, it would be cumbersome to 
give chapter and verse for them all. This particular myth, with the 
active part Brihaspati plays in it, was a great favorite, for it is alluded 
to innumerable times, though Sarama is mentioned only in half a 
dozen texts. 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 259 

be adopted, — no doubt the original one, — one is more 
tempted to concur in that which makes her out to be 
the wind which precedes a heavy rain. It is only 
the wind that can be called the scout of the heavens ; 
only the wind that may be said to try to bring away 
** the cows " from the solid black mountain banked 
up against the horizon, and to be unable to accom- 
plish it until the storm-god and his troop follow the 
" broad trail " opened for them and break open the 
rock. This explanation is greatly confirmed by the 
fact that Sarama's canine offspring, the Sarameya 
dogs, undoubtedly are the evening twilight twins 
(probably in symmetrical opposition to the morning 
twilight twins, the Ashvins), who have inherited their 
mother's scouting and cattle-driving qualities, — only 
the cattle they are after are men (see p, 182), — and 
most certainly represent the twilight together with 
and inseparably from the breeze which, in Southern 
climes, invariably rises immediately after sunset.' 
That, like the Ashvins, these twins may, in the course 
of time, have been separated into morning and even- 
ing, is more than likely ; indeed one Brahmana, in one 
of those rare passages of profound poetical beauty 
("rare" in every sense of the word), which reward 
the patient searcher, calls Day and Night, " the 
outstretched arms of Death." 

17. So much for this most lucid nature-myth. But 
nature-myths have a way of becoming transformed 

' The name Sarameya has been philologically identified beyond a 
doubt with that of the Hellenic god Hermes, the messenger of the 
gods, the sweet whistler and musician, the stealer of cows and guide 
of the dead — and Hermes is certainly the wind. 



26o VEDIC INDIA. 

in the course of time ; and if they do not actually 
descend to earth and become the stories of old-time 
heroes and sages, they can undergo changes to suit 
the developing spirit of the race and age without 
being taken from their celestial habitat. This ap- 
pears to have been the case with the myth of 
Sarama, even before it assumed its fixed and finished 
form in the canon of the hymns/ For in this form 
latest research finds good reason to see a combina- 
tion of nature-myth and spiritual, or rather ritualistic, 
elements, introduced by those all-pervading priestly 
influences which were soon to culminate in the 
tyranny of Brahmanism. In this transformed myth 
Sarama represents no longer a power of nature, 
but that of the human Prayer, more correctly the 
sacred word — the mantra ; for, as early as the Vedic 
times, prayer was no longer the spontaneous out- 
pouring of the heart, as it must have been at least 
sometimes and with some of the first composers 
of the hymns, the ancient Rishis, but a strictly 
regulated reciting of texts considered as sacred and 
powerful in themselves, with a sort of talismanic 
power, and credited with compelling force over the 
elements, i. e., the gods. It will be seen that Sarama, 
as a personification of this Prayer, can well be 
imagined as " going on the right path " (" the path 
of rila," represented on earth by the sacrificial 
rite), ** finding the cows," frightening the robbers, 
then guiding the god to the strong stable and stand- 
ing by while he breaks it open. This secondary 
interpretation will be very convincing if we consider 

' See Bergaigne, La Religion Ve'dique, vol. ii., pp. 31 1-32 1. 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 261 

who Indra's attendants are on this occasion : not the 
Maruts, but the Angiras — a .troop of priestly demi- 
gods, supposed to be divinized ancient sacrificers, in 
reality themselves personifications of the sacred 
hymns which they go on everlastingly singing on 
their aerial way. Now the heavenly form of the 
sacred song is the voice of the thunder. When the 
loud singing of the Angiras mingles with the lowing 
of the captive cows, of course we know we have to 
imagine the long swelling and rolling thunder of a 
southern storm, answered by muffled mutterings from 
the distant mountains, while the " loud crash " with 
which the cave-stable is burst open is the short 
rattling clap of the bolt that strikes. For all heavenly 
music is produced either by the thunder or the wind 
or the rain. And thunder is the Sacred Word, the 
Sacred Hymn par excellence, the prototype of all 
speech, the language known to gods, but not under- 
stood of men.' 

18. Then — Indra's companion. It is not Vishnu, 
or Soma, or even Agni in his direct natural form ; it 
is Brihaspati or Brahmanaspati — Fire in his most 
august, sacrificial, and sacerdotal form, the " Lord of 
Prayer," the leader of hymns, the institutor of 
worship and rites ; in a word, the divine hotar and 
purohita, the priest of god and men, having himself 
the name of " Angiras" — the leaderof the Nine, and 
the divine personification of both the holiness and 
the power of the brahma — Prayer, as represented by 
the sacred songs — sdman, or sacred texts — mantra? 

* See farther, pp. 269-270. 

^ Brahma^ from a root meaning " to penetrate, to pervade ; it is 
also contained in the name Brihaspati. 



262 VEDIC INDIA. 

When therefore he is called pathikrit — " path- 
preparer " ' — we are not puzzled as to what path is 
meant : it is the same that " the old Rishis have pre- 
pared," that on which Sarama led the gods, the broad 
and ancient heavenly path which leads to the one 
goal — the path of Sacrifice. In the hymns addressed 
to this priestly deity, he is credited with all the 
deeds and works elsewhere ascribed to Indra and 
all the other great nature-gods, whose supremacy 
thus seems to be centred in him or rather transferred 
to him, and numberless short interpolated passages 
bring him into older hymns where he is manifestly 
out of place. Indeed we have in him the connecting 
link between pure Vedism and rising Brahmanism. 
For not only are the Brahmans the men who wield 
the power of the brakma, but the line of abstract 
speculation, initiated by this creation — and reflection 
— of the priestly class (soon to be a caste), gradually 
supersedes the old joyous, vigorous nature-worship, 
and culminates in the evolution of the bralima 
(neuter noun) into an all-pervading but latent spir- 
itual essence and presence, and its final manifesta- 
tion in the person of the supreme god and creator 
Brahma (masculine), the head of the great Brahma- 
nic Triad. 

19. It has been remarked that "all the gods 
whose names are compounded with /«//[" lord of — "] 
must be reckoned among the more recent. They 



' The exact equivalent of the Latin highest priestly title, pontifex 
— literally "bridge-maker." Pons, poiitis originally meant not a 
bridge, but a path : a bridge is a path across a river. The Teutonic 
and Slavic languages have retained the old meaning. 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 263 

were the products of reflection." ' It should never 
be forgotten, at the same time, that such secondary 
mythical persons (abstractions) must of necessity 
have developed out of primary ones (nature-gods), 
and the Rig-Veda shows us exactly how it was 
done. " Brahmanaspati " is repeatedly used in the 
hymns as an adjective, an epithet of Agni. It 
does not follow from this that, after the epithet 
is detached from the name it qualifies and has be- 
come a separate person, that person should be con- 
sidered as always identical with the bearer of that 
name, for with an individuality it also assumes in- 
dividual life, and begins its own course of evolution ; 
but the original connection between the two will 
always be apparent, as that of Brihaspati with sacri- 
ficial fire. Thus again Savitar, Soma, Indra, each in 
turn receive the epithet of Prajapati — "lord of 
descendants," or, as the word is more commonly 
translated, " lord of creatures." In the late stage of 
Vedic theology, the dawning era of abstractions, we 
always have Prajapati mentioned, and occasionally 
invoked as a separate deity. It is only in post-vedic 
Brahmanism, however, that he attains the supreme 
honor of being identified with Brahma himself. 
Another connecting link; another product of the 
period of transition. Such also is Vishvakarman 
— " the fabricator of the universe," originally a 
title given to Indra, Surya, and other great gods, 
then an independent deity, tending, in true Vedic 
fashion, to absorb the functions, qualities, and 

^ Roth, "Brahma and the Brahmans," Journal of the German 
Oriental Society, vol. i., pp. 66 _^. 



264 VEDIC INDIA. 

honors of all other gods. Two hymns are con- 
secrated to him (X., 81 and 82), where he is 
described as 

" the one god who has on every side eyes, on every side a face, arms, 
feet ; who, when producing heaven and earth, shapes them with 
his arms and wings. , . . "Who is our father, our creator, 
maker, — who every place doth know and every creature, — by whom 
alone to gods their names were given, — to whom all other creatures 
go, to ask him." 

Among these gods of the second formation we 
may also class HiRANYAGARBHA, — " the Golden 
Embryo," or " the Golden Child," evidently origi- 
nally a name of the Sun, — who goes the same way 
of abstraction which leads these gods to the supreme 
rank. A most beautiful hymn (X., 121) is addressed 
to him, but it properly belongs, as well as the 
greater portion of those to Vishvakarman, among 
those that illustrate the beginnings of speculative 
philosophy in the Rig- Veda.' 

20. These gods of what we call the secondary or 
speculative formation, whose connection with the 
primary nature-gods is clearly discernible, should be 
carefully distinguished from deities of a third class 
still — the purely allegorical — i. e., mere personifica- 
tions of abstractions and qualities that never had 
any existence in physical nature, such as Faith 
(Shraddha), Liberality (DakshinA, in the sense of 
largess to the priests) Wrath (Manyus, the right- 
eous wrath which animates those who fight demons 
and earthly foes). This, as we have seen, is the 
favorite myth-form of the moralizing Eranians,'^ and 

^ See farther on, chapter xi. 

* See Story of Media, etc., pp. Tiff. 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 265 

does not at all come natural to the Aryas of India 
in the earlier time of their cheerful nature-worship. 
It is therefore but scantily represented in the Rig- 
Veda, but blossoms forth abundantly in the late por- 
tions of the Atharva-Veda, where Time, Desire, the 
Breath of Life, etc., are addressed as divine persons, 
with all the pompousness of the earlier hymns to 
Indra, Agni, Soma, and the others. In the Brah- 
manas this element predominates more and more. 

21. It may have been noticed that the feminine 
element is almost absent from our sketch of the 
Vedic Pantheon. So it is from the Rig- Veda it- 
self. There is really only one " great goddess," with 
an individuality, a story, and functions proper to her 
and to no other divine being, and that is Ushas, the 
Dawn. Sarama is not a goddess ; still less Saranyu 
"The wives of the gods" — -the Devapatnis — are 
spoken of vaguely, collectively, but they are easily 
transformed into " wives of the demons — Ddsapat- 
nts,'' — for they are in reality neither more nor less 
than " the waters " or " cows," which are eternally 
fought for, captured, and rescued. And when these 
" wives" so far emerge out of their misty unreality 
as to be coupled with one or other particular god, 
they assume their husbands' names with a feminine 
ending: Varunani, Indrani, Agnayi, Ashvini. 
They are only pale, unsubstantial reflections. 

22. Neither can the Waters and Rivers properly 
be called goddesses, though they are treated with 
extreme reverence, and frequently invoked as the 
holiest and purest of created things. When " the 
Waters " — Apas — are spoken of in a general vva}-, 



266 VEDIC INDIA. 

the heavenly waters are meant, as a rule — the 
Mothers of Agni, and one of the abodes of Soma ; 
hence their mysterious and exceeding holiness, which 
is naturally transferred to the terrestrial waters, if 
only because the latter play an important part in sac- 
rifice as one of the ingredients of the Soma-beverage. 
Yet, although the Waters' mystical purifying powers 
are" certainly alluded to in such texts as " . . . these 
divine ones carry away defilement ; I come up out 
of them pure and cleansed," there is no doubt that 
their physical qualities were fully realized and appre- 
ciated : their cleanness, their wholesomeness, their 
bountifulness as the fosterers of vegetation and of 
cattle, and as wealth-givers. They are then thought 
of chiefly in their form of rivers, and are com- 
pared, often very poetically, to various things loved 
of the people : now to stately milch-cows, now to 
fleet and graceful mares ; they are playful sisters, 
they are kindly mothers. There is a famous " River- 
hymn " — Nadistiiti (X., 75) — celebrating by name 
the rivers of early Aryan India, a treasure of prehis- 
torical geography. For there we find all the rivers 
of the Sapta-Sindhavah (see pp. 107, 108, note), be- 
sides several which it has been impossible so far to 
identify with certainty. They may possibly belong 
to a more eastern and less familiar region than the 
old Riverland, a region only just entered by 
the Aryas in their slow onward march — mainly in 
search of new pastures and more room to spread 
in.* For this is the only hymn in the whole 

' "We have come to a pastureless land . . ." (the sandy 
tract west of the Djumna) " . . , The earth, though wide, is 
too close for us : show us the way in battle, O Brihaspati ! . . ." 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. . 267 

collection in which unmistakable mention is made of 
the Ganga and Yamuna (Ganges and Djumna), show- 
ing it to be one of the very latest. But they are 
merely named, as two among many ; while fully 
half of the verses are devoted to the glorification of 
the Sindhu (Indus) who 

" flashing, sparkling, gleaming, in her majesty, the unconquer- 
able, the most abundant of streams, beautiful as a handsome, spotted 
mare, rolls her waters over the levels." 

Evidently the centre of gravity of Aryan spiritual 
life had not yet been displaced. 

23. Among the rivers there is one which, from the 
extreme reverence cherished for it, and the manifold 
aspects it assumes, comes nearest to the rank of a 
real goddess, a divine Person, receiving oblations 
and invited to partake of Soma. It is the Saras- 
VATI. We have seen (p. 109) that, in the late Vedic 
period and the whole of post-vedic classical antiquity, 
the name and the great sacredness attaching thereto, 
belong to a rather insignificant river, which at the 
present time loses itself in the sands of a tract of 
desert, and which even in its early and palmier days 
could never have possessed much importance, unless 
it were, as at one time, the farthest eastern boundary 
of the Aryan domain beyond which Agni " Vaish- 
vanara " ("who burns for all men") had not been 
carried — i. e., the sacrificial flame, personifying Aryan 
conquest and Aryan propaganda. Nor is it possible 
that this Sarasvati should ever have been described 
in such superlative terms of admiration as the follow- 
ing: (VIL, 95, 1-2): 



268 VEDIC INDIA. 

"With great noise of waters, bringing nourishment, Sarasvati 
breaks forth ; she is to us a firm bulwark, a fortress of brass. Like to 
a warrior in the chariot race, she speeds along, the sindhn [river], 
leaving all other waters far behind. 

" Sarasvati comes down the purest of streams, from the mountains 
to the sa7nudra ; ' bringing wealth and prosperity to the wide world, 
she flows with milk and honey for those that dwell by her banks." 

In early Vedic times, (and the book in which 
this passage occurs is a late one) there was only 
one river that justified such a description — the 
Indus. Indeed this passage has led to the positive 
identification of the Sarasvati as the Indus. This 
undoubtedly was the original name of the great 
river of the West, till it came to be familiarly 
spoken of simply as SindJiu, " the River." After 
the Aryas had advanced a considerable distance 
eastward, crossing river after river, they reached 
one which arrested their progress for a time. Set- 
tlements arose along its course, and it inherited the 
name that for some reason was dear and sacred to 
the Aryas. For what reason ? From ancient memo- 
ries and association. For " Sarasvati " is the exact 
Sanskrit equivalent of the Old-Eranian " Hara- 
QAITI," the Avestan name of the great river (mod- 
ern Helmend) of Eastern Eran — Afghanistan and 
Kabul — where some of the separating Indo-Eranian 
tribes certainly sojourned before they summoned 
courage to face the stony wall of the Suleiman range 
and thread its wild, narrow passes. Was it not natural 

' Sai7iudra — "gathering of waters" ; in the Rig- Veda not the sea 
or ocean, but the broad expanse formed by the reunion with the 
Indus of the " five rivers," whose waters are brought to it by the 
Pantchanada (see p. 107). 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 269 

that they should have thus perpetuated the memory 
of what had long been home ? This beautiful and 
natural solution is suggested by the results of latest 
researches,' and confirmed from a most unexpec- 
ted quarter by a curt mention in the Atharva-Veda 
(VI., 100,) of three Sarasvatis — a mention which, 
being long unexplained, has been another of the 
puzzles which confront scholars at every step. Pro- 
bably no explanation was needed at the time, of 
things which had not passed out of remembrance. 

24. Sarasvati in post-vedic times is chiefly praised 
and invoked as the goddess of eloquence, though she 
never lost her identity as river-goddess. We our- 
selves speak of " a rich, a free, an easy flow of words," 
of "fluency of speech," of a " torrent of eloquence," 
— so the poetical imagery which underlies this trans- 
formation will not appear far-fetched or strained. 
In the Rig-Veda we do not yet find her thus spe- 
cialized, but she is associated with sacrifice and the 
hymns in a way to leave little doubt that, in the 
later portions of it, she already represented the elo- 
quence of sacred poetry, possibly even the different 
sacred metres which were extolled and deified to 
such an extraordinary extent in the Brahmanas. 

25. The same may be said in a still greater meas- 
ure of another goddess, VAcH,'^ — personified Speech, 
— who in the Rig- Veda already (in the latest book 
of course, the tenth) is invested with much of the 

' See chiefly Hillebrandt Vedische Mythologie, vol. i., pp. gq-ioo. 
It will be noticed that the Helmend ends, not in a sea, but in a large 
lake, to which the name of samudra would apply perfectly. 

* Ch pronounced as in church. 



2^0 VEDiC INDIA 

usual pomp of Brahmanic metaphysics, as a " most 
adorable," " widely pervading," wealth-bringing deity 
of " many abodes," but not to extravagance; the 
personification — or rather allegory — does not pass 
the bounds of fine, even noble poetry, and is more- 
over distinctly traceable to the natural phenomenon 
from which it is evolved. For sublimity, few con- 
ceptions can equal this of our race's earliest poets 
— a conception which lingers still in the mythical 
poetry of later nations in other lands. Primeval 
speech is the voice of the gods, speaking in thunder 
and storm ; it is Vdch, — the Sacred Word, majestic 
and compelling, beneficent and wise — in its heavenly 
abode. But it is not for men. To them Vach 
descends in the form of Speech, and lo ! 

" I . . . men with their earliest utterances, gave names to things, 
and all which they had lovingly treasured within them, the most ex- 
cellent and spotless, was disclosed. 2. Wherever the wise have 
uttered speech \ydc]i\ with discrimination, sifting it as meal with a 
sieve, there friend knows friend and auspicious fortune waits on their 
words. 3. Through sacrifice they followed the track of Vach, and 
found her entered into the Rishis. Taking her, they divided her into 
many portions, and now the seven Rishis sing her praise. 4. One 
man, seeing, sees not Vach ; another, hearing, hears her not ; to 
another she willingly discloses herself, as a well-attired and loving 
wife displays her person to her husband. 5. One man is said to be 
secure in her favor — and he is not to be overwhelmed in poetical 
contests ; another lives in unprofitable brooding : he has only heard 
Vach, and she is to him without fruit or flower. 6. He who forsakes 
a well-meaning friend, he has no portion in Vach, and what he hears 
he hears in vain : unknown to him is the path of virtue. 7. And 
even those who enjoy her witli equally understanding eye and ear, 
are unequal in the moving of the spirit : some are lakes which reach 
up to shoulder and to mouth, and some are shallow waters good to bathe 
in. 8. When competing priests practice devotion in sayings born of 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 2/1 

the spirit's might, one lags far behind in wisdom, while others prove 
themselves true priests. 9. One sits and produces songs like blos- 
soms ; another sings them in loud strains ; one discourses sapiently of 
the essence of things ; another measures out the sacrifice according to 
the rite, 10. And friends are proud of their friend, when he comes 
among them as leader of the poets. He corrects their errors, helps 
them to prosperity, and stands up, ready for the poetical contest." 

(X., 71). 



The beauty, dignity, and ennobling uses of speech 
could scarcely be appraised with finer feeling or 
apter touches ; or the difference between him who 
seeing, sees not, and hearing, hears not, and him to 
whom the gift is given ; between the spirit deep as 
the lake and the mind shallow as the bathing pool ; 
between him who blossoms into song, and him who 
unprofitably cudgels his brains and for whom the 
goddess has neither fruit nor flower. Only, we must 
beware of putting more modern a sense into passages 
of this kind than they will bear. We must remember 
that the poetry we have to do with here, though 
god-given, is not the free, unfettered gift that it is to 
us : the goddess must be sought through sacrifice, 
which means that she comes loaded with all the 
shackles of rite, ceremonial, sacred metres, etc. The 
poetical contests are for the composition of hymns, 
the errors which the victorious priest corrects are 
errors in sacrificial technique, the prosperity to which 
he helps is that obtained, nay compelled, from the 
gods by correctly regulated prayer {brahmci). Still, 
the poet who " fashioned " this hymn, builded better 
than he knew, and, if freed from extraneous, priestly 
matter, it remains an exquisite thing for all time. 



2/2 VEDIC INDIA. 

Not SO another hymn (X., 125) consecrated to 
Vach, where the goddess is the Brahman ic abstrac- 
tion and nothing more, or that most characteristic 
passage where she undergoes the inevitable trans- 
formation into a cow. The poet is discontented. 
Maybe he is purohita to a prince who is not over 
lavish with sacrifices — which are expensive — and 
fees and gifts have been coming in scantily. He 
puts his plaint in the mouth of the goddess Vach, 
whom he presents as saying : 

" I, Vach, the skilled in speech, who assist all pious practices, — I, 
the divine cow who has come from the gods, — I am neglected by evil- 
minded man." 

26. We will conclude our selection with a short 
poem (it can hardly be called a hymn) in praise of 
Aranyani, the goddess of forest solitude ( Waldein- 
samkeif), or rather — the personified Forest. Not that 
she is of much importance as a divine being ; indeed 
she appears to have been invented for the occasion 
by some poet-hermit whose soul was attuned to her 
mysterious charm. But it is a pretty thing ; and 
besides, it shows that forest life, which was to be- 
come so distinctive a feature of later Brahmanism, 
is — like almost everything that ever held a place in 
the spiritual life of Aryan India, — to be traced to 
the fountain-head of it, the Rig-Veda. We must 
imagine the thousand strange sounds and delusions 
which seem to encompass the solitary listener of an 
evening in the darkening forest : 

" I. Aranyani, Aranyani ! thou seemest to have lost thyself there ; 
why dost thou not ask the way to the village ? Does terror not seize 



LESSER AND LATER GODS. 273 

thee? — 2. When the owl's shrill call is answered by the parrot, which 
hops about as though to cymbals' rhythm, then does Aranyani rejoice. 
— 3. Here, there is a sound as of browsing cows ; there, houses appear 
to be seen ; then there is a creaking at eventide, as though Aranyani 
were unloading carts. — 4. Here one man calls to his cow — there 
another fells a tree ; then one dwelling in the forest at night fancies 
that some one has screamed. — 5. Aranyani is not herself murderous, 
if no one else assails (a tiger, etc.) ; and after eating of sweet fruit, a 
man rests there at his pleasure. — 6. I sing the praise of Aranyani, 
the mother of wild beasts, the spicy, the fragrant, who yields abun- 
dance of food, though she has no hinds to till her." 






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CHAPTER VIII. 

THE RIG-VEDA: EARLY HISTORY. 

1. Everybody knows what is meant by Caste in 
India. Everybody has a more or less clear perception 
of the hold this baleful system has established on 
about one sixth of the human race, and of its well- 
nigh ineradicable evil effects, — of the insuperable 
barrier it opposes to the best-meant efforts of the 
country's European rulers. We are not here con- 
cerned with the modern development of the system 
■ — the endless divisions and subdivisions resulting 
from intermarriages, originally forbidden, — which 
make official life in India so bewildering a 
task. But we must dwell awhile on the original 
division of the social body into four distinct, well- 
defined classes : (i) the Priests — Brahmans ; (2) 
the Warriors — KSHATRIYA or Rajanya ; (3) the 
Working class — Vaishya (farmers, craftsmen, and 
traders) ; — and (4) the Menial class — Shudra ; in 
other words : those who pray ; those who fight ; 
those who produce and barter ; and those who 
serve. 

2. This is the division into which, more or less 
distinctly, every nation naturally splits itself at the 

274 



EARLY HISTORY. 2y$ 

very start of its organized existence. The peculiarity 
which characterizes it in India from very early times 
is that nowhere else were the distinctions so harshly 
set, the separating lines drawn so deep and straight ; 
nowhere else were men so sternly doomed to live 
and die within the pale of the social status into which 
they were born, with nothing left to individual 
choice, no narrowest door ajar through which to pass 
into another — wherein, in fact, lies the very essence 
of caste as distinguished from mere class barriers, 
which may be high and forbidding, but not utterly 
impassable. Lastly, nowhere else did the priesthood 
claim such absolute pre-eminence, demand such un- 
conditional submissiveness, such almost servile self- 
abasement from all other members of the community 
— to this extent that for a Brahman to marry a 
maiden of the warrior caste was a condescension or 
derogation, although to that caste belonged the kings 
and princes, the rulers of the land. What other 
priesthood ever had the hardihood to proclaim in so 
many words that " there are two classes of gods : 
the gods in heaven, and the Brahmans on earth " ? 
Let us see how the great Brahmanic code — the Laws 
of Manu — defines the duties and mutual relations of 
the four castes (L, 88-91) : 

" To Brahmans he [Brahma] assigned teaching and studying the 
Veda, sacrificing for their own benefit and for others, giving and 
accepting of ahus. 

" The Kshatriya he commanded to protect the people, to bestow 
gifts, to offer sacrifices, to study the Veda, and to abstain from 
attacliing himself to sensual pleasures. 

" The Vaishya to tend cattle, to bestow gifts, to offer sacrifices, to 
study the Veda, to trade, to lend money, and to cultivate land. 



2/6 VEDIC INDIA. 

" One occupation only the Lord prescribed to the Shudra : to 
serve meekly the other three castes." 

The position claimed for the Brahmans in this first, 
general definition, is comparatively modest, certainly 
not unreasonably arrogant ; but we turn a few pages 
and the lawgiver goes into details and makes his 
meaning clearer. 

"A Brahman," we read, "coming into existence, is born as the 
highest on earth, the lord of all created beings, for the protection of 
the treasury of the law. 

' ' Whatever exists in the world is the property of the Erahman ; on 
account of the excellence of his origin, the Brahman is, indeed, en- 
titled to it all. 

"The Brahman eats but his own food, wears but his own apparel, 
bestows but his own in alms ; other mortals subsist through the 
benevolence of the Brahman. 

" , , . Know that a Brahman of ten years and a Kshatriya 
of a hundred years stand to each other in the relation of father and 
son ; but between those two the Brahman is the father. 

"... A Brahman, be he ignorant or learned, is a great 
divinity. . . ." 

" . . . Though Brahmans employ themselves in all sorts of 
mean occupations, they must be honored in every way ; for each of 
them is a very great deity. . . ." 

The whole duty of kings is pithily summed up under 
these three heads: " Not to turn back in battle; to 
protect the people ; to honor Brahmans." " To 
worship Brahmans " is the expression repeatedly 
used ; " to enrich them " is a point emphatically in- 
culcated, and the king is solemnly warned not to 
provoke them to anger under any circumstances, 
" for they, when angered, could instantly destroy him, 
together with his army and vehicles." Many are 








l8. — THE SIXTH AVATAR (OR VISHNU INCARNATE AS PAKASHU-KAMA, 
THE EXTERMINATOR OF THE KSHATRIYAS).' 

' The COW is Vasishtha's sacred and miraculous cow, the emblem 
of Brahmanic prayer and sacrifice. 



277 



278 VEDIC INDIA. 

the worldly privileges and exemptions which they 
demand and enjoy. Still, it is very certain that the 
material power was in the hands of the warrior 
caste and that the Brahmans did not get quite as much 
in practice as they claimed in theory, and were per- 
fectly aware that conciliation was, after all, their 
wisest policy. Indeed, after some of the most out- 
rageous bragging and bullying, the priestly lawgiver 
suddenly descends to reasonable ground and lays 
down the following shrewd axiom, which, in all 
times and countries, has been the basis of the mutual 
understanding between Church and State : 



" Kshatriyas prosper not without Brahmans ; Brahmans prosper 
not without Kshatriyas. Brahmans and Kshatriyas, being closely 
united, prosper in this world and the next.' 



3. It will have been noticed that only the three 
first castes are enjoined to study the Veda. , No 
mention of this duty is made among those of the 
fourth, the servile, caste. But this is not all. The 
Shudras were not only not expected, they were for- 



' Post-vedic Brahmanism, however, retains a vivid memory of a 
bitter struggle for supremacy between the Brahman caste and that 
of the Kshatriyas. It is given in the form of a story both in the 
Mahabharata and the Puranas : The Kshatriyas had become so 
arrogant and oppressive that the interference of Vishnu himself was 
needed to repress them. The god took human form and was born 
in the family of the Bhrigu, a priestly race of divine descent, as 
Parashu-Rama (" Rama with the axe") who became the extermi- 
nator of the warrior caste. " Thrice seven times did he clear the 
earth of the Kshatriya race and filled five lakes witli their blood" — 
after which he ^ave the earth to the Brahmans ! 



EARLY HISTORY, 279 

bidden, to share in the sacred inheritance of those 
whom to serve was their only mission. Their pres- 
ence at a sacrifice would have polluted it ; the sacred 
mantras were not to be sung or recited within hear- 
ing of a Shudra, and had a Brahman instructed one 
of the servile caste in the knowledge of the Veda, he 
would have been guilty of a wellnigh inexpiable 
offence. When a boy of one of the three higher 
castes attained a certain age, considered as "years of 
discretion," ' he was " initiated," i. e., admitted under 
solemn ceremonies into the religious community, 
after which he was placed under a ^"«rz/ or spiritual 
guide, invariably a Brahman, for instruction in the 
Veda. This initiation was regarded as the youth's 
second birth, his birth into the spiritual life, wherefore 
the three higher castes took pride in the appellation 
of " twice-born" {dvi-ja). From this distinction the 
Shudras, of course, were excluded. This is declared 
most explicitly in Manu's Code : 

" The Brahman, the Kshatriya, and the Vaishya castes are the 
twice-born ones, but the fourth, the Shudra, has no second birth. 
There is no fifth caste." 

4. This brief survey of the original caste system 
has led us away from what is, properly speaking, our 
allotted subject, for we have strayed into post-vedic 
times. But the digression was necessary in order, 
precisely, to conclude it with the statement that 
castes, as a firmly established institution, were not 

^ Any time between the eighth and sixteenth year for a Brahman, 
between the eleventh and twenty-second for a Kshatriya, and be- 
tween the twelfth and the twenty-fourth for a Vaishya. 



28o VEDIC INDIA. 

as yet a feature of the Vedic period. Had they 
been, the fact must have transpired, even if indi- 
rectly, in the Rig-Veda, which faithfully reflects the 
state of society prevailing at the time that the col- 
lection was forming ; and this is not the case, except 
in one solitary and noteworthy instance : the 
ninetieth hymn of the tenth book (X., 90), known as 
the " Purusha-hymn," PURUSHA-SUKTA. The hymn, 
as a whole, is exceedingly obscure and of entirely 
mystical import. It describes the act of creation in 
the guise of a huge sacrifice performed by the gods, 
in which the central figure and victim is a primeval 
giant, a being named Purusha (one of the names for 
man), probably because mankind is represented as 
being produced by this being or, more correctly, out 
of various portions of his body. This is the only pas- 
sage of the hymn with which we are here concerned. 
Purusha, it is said, " is this whole universe, whatever 
has been and whatever shall be." Probably in a 
latent state, since the gods proceed to evolve out of 
him worlds and animals and men: 

" When the gods divided Purusha, into how many parts did they 
cut him up ? What was his mouth ? What his arms ? What his 
thighs and feet ? 

" The Brahman was his mouth ; the Rajanya was made his arms ; 
the Vaishya he was his thighs ; the Shudra sprang from his feet." 

Now the tenth book, as a whole, is of later date 
than the rest. It was made a sort of receptacle for 
odd hymns and such as, important in themselves, did 
not fit well into the scheme of the others, or were 
attributed to odd authors, while each book (except 



EARLY HISTORY. 28 1 

the tenth and the first) usually bears the name of 
one priestly poet or family of poets. Intrinsic differ- 
ences in language, spirit, range of thought, etc., bear 
witness to the fact. The Purusha-Sukta especially 
comes under this head, and, by bringing the caste 
system as far back as the late Vedic period, shows 
how easy must have been the transition from that to 
the so-called Brahmanic or classical period, there 
never really having been a violent break between the 
two. The Brahmanic writings all endorse the Puru- 
sha myth, with the only difference that Brahma, the 
Creator and highest deity of the post-vedic creed, is 
substituted for the older name, and the mystic sacri- 
fice is not mentioned. This is why the Brahmans 
always boast of " the excellence of their origin," 
their interpretation of the legend being this : that 
those who came from the Deity's mouth, as the 
noblest organ, are born to teach and to command ; 
they embody his Mind, his Word ; those that came 
from his arms are born for action and defence ; those 
that come from his thighs have the mission of car- 
rying and supporting the nobler parts of the social 
body ; while humble service is clearly the lot of 
those lowly ones who proceed from the divine feet.' 
5. Although the castes and their names occur but 
once in the course of the entire Rig-Veda, there is 
another distinction which recurs throughout the col- 

^ Ludwig suggests that there is a hint at caste — or at least the in- 
cipient conception of caste — in tlie hymn to Ushas (Rig-Veda 1136), 
where it is said that the goddess ' ' arousing one to wield the royal 
power, another to follow after fame, another to the pursuit of wealth, 
another to perform services, awakes all creatures to go their different 
paths in life." (Seep. 222.) 



282 



VEDIC INDIA. 



lection, no matter to whom the different books are 
ascribed, and which divides the peoples who dwelt 
in the Penjab, and, later on, those who occupied the 
more easterly portion of Hindustan, into two main 
categories opposed to each other, each comprising 
numerous subdivisions, i. e., nations or tribes, man}' 
of whose names have been preserved by contempo- 




19. — BRAHMANS OF BENGAL ( = ArYAS). 



rary bards: this division is that into Aryas and 
Dasyus. Who the former are we know well, and a 
natural association leads us to the conclusion that 
the latter are no other than the native — or non- 
Aryan — peoples whom the Aryan immigrants found 
in the land, and whom, after a long period of strug- 
gle, they reduced into more or less reluctant sub- 



EARLY HISTORY. 



283 



mission. There is no doubt but that we have here 
the first beginnings of caste, for this sweeping divi- 
sion is singularly like the modern one into " twice- 
born " and Shudra. Besides, the name for caste is 
even now varna, which means " color," and we shall 
presently see that the difference of color between 
the white conquerors and the dark-skinned natives is 
continually alluded to by the Vedic poets. Then, 
too, the word Dasyu, with the changes of meaning 




20. — LOW-CASTE BENGALESE ( = DASYUS). 



it has undergone, tells an eloquent tale. It is an 
old Aryan word, and the Persians continued to use 
it in its original harmless sense of peoples, nations. 
In Dareios' historical rock inscriptions we find it so 
used, also in opposition to Aryas, to designate the 
populations of the provinces. In India it took a 
hostile shading — that of " enemies," whence it easily 
passed into the cloudland of Vedic mythology, with 
the meaning of "fiends," "evil demons," — the pow- 



284 VEDIC INDIA. 

ers of darkness and drought — the "foes" whom 
Indra eternally combats and conquers with the help 
of the Maruts, the Angiras, and other beings of 
light. Logical and natural as the transition is, it 
adds very greatly to the difificulties of Vedic inter- 
pretation, because, when Indra or Agni are be- 
sought to drive away and annihilate the Dasyus, or 
are said to have destroyed the fastnesses of the 
Dasyus, it is frequently all but impossible to decide 
zvhich " enemies " are meant — the earthly or the 
mythical ones/ The last change which the word 
underwent is very significant : it ended by meaning 
simply " slave, servant," (slightly altered into ddsa), 
thus telling of conquest completed, and closely an- 
swering the more modern Shudra. We may, then, 
set down as correct the equation: Arya — Dasyu = 
"twice-born" — Shudra. And if any more proof 
be wanted of the fact that the servile class was made 
such by conquest, we have it in a passage of Manu's 
Code, which forbids the twice-born to associate with 
a Shudra " even though he ivere a king." What can 
a Shudra king be but a native sovereign ? 

6. It were impossible to exaggerate the loathing 
and contempt with which the Aryas regarded those 
whom they were robbing of land and liberty. These 
feelings primarily aroused by that most ineradicable 
and unreasoning of human instincts, race antago- 
nism, find vent in numberless passages of great value, 

' How easy and natural the step from "foe" to "fiend" we see 
from the very word " fiend," which originally meant both. The 
"arch-fiend" is the "arch-enemy" of mankind, — Erz-feiiid the 
Germans call him even yet. 



EARLY HISTORY. 285 

because they enable us to piece together a tolerably 
correct picture of what those aborigines must have 
been, and in what manner they chiefly contrasted 
with their conquerors. The difference in color and 
cast of features is the first to strike us, and in that, 
as already hinted, we trace the beginnings of caste 
distinction. " Destroying the Dasyus, Indra pro- 
tected the Aryan color," gratefully proclaims one 
poet. " Indra," says another, " protected in battle 
the Aryan worshipper, he subdued the lawless for 
Manu, he conquered the black skinr " He [Indra] 
beat the Dasyus as is his wont ... he con- 
quered the land with his fair [or white] friends. . . ." 
Other names given by their Aryan conquerors are 
" goat-nosed " and " noseless " {anaso, evidently an 
exaggeration of " flat-nosed "), while the Aryan gods 
are praised for their beautiful noses. The Dasyus 
are accused of having no sacred fires, of worshipping 
mad gods, of eating raw meat, and, lastly, it would 
appear that they were held to be dangerous sorcerers : 
" Thou [Indra] hast made the Dasa's magic powerless 
against the Rishi." Needless to add that difference 
of language completed the barrier which the victors 
later strove to render impassable. 

7. Although the opposition of Arya to Dasyu or 
Dasa, of " twice-born " to Shudra, is a perfectly 
established and intelligible fact, it were a mistake to 
see in " Dasyu " or " Shudra " the names of a par- 
ticular nation: they applied to all that were not 
Aryan, somewhat after the manner that, in classic 
antiquity, all went by the name of " Barbarians " 
who were not Greeks or Romans. It is suspected 



286 VEDIC INDIA. 

that " Dasyu," in a slightly different form, iiiay have 
been originally the name of a people whom the Indo- 
Eranian Aryas encountered and fought in their 
wanderings before they entered the Penjab.' If so, 
the name early became a common one for " ene- 
mies," then " subjects," and its origin was thoroughly 
forgotten by both Eranians and Aryas of India. In 
point of fact, the fair-complexioned worshippers of 
Agni, Indra, and Soma found two widely different 
races in possession. These were undoubtedly broken 
up into numerous tribes, with different names and 
under different kings, — as, for that matter, were the 
Aryas themselves. The Rig-Veda teems with names 
which at first produce a bewildering impression of 
chaotic confusion ; but we shall see that the patient 
labors of a band of ingenious and untiring searchers 
have already succeeded in bringing some kind of 
order into this confusion, and evolving out of it 
something that may be called a twilight of history. 
This groping in a particularly obscure past, unguided 
by even the scantiest monumental evidence, is mate- 
rially aided by an observant study of the mixed 

^ Nor were these " enemies " always and necessarily of non-Aryan 
stock. The Dahae (possibly the original " dasyus ") seem to have been 
" a tribe nearly akin to the Eranians," located " in the Kirghiz-Turk- 
man Steppe, which extends from the Caspian Sea beyond the Yaxartes 
(now Syr-Darya)." See Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertktims,yo\. 
i., § 425, p. 525, and Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologie, vol. i., pp. 
94-116. In this most important chapter it is also suggested to iden- 
tify the wealthy robber tribe of the Funis with the Parniajis, whom 
the Greek biographer Strabo describes as nomads — a sort of Eranian 
Bedouins — having their abodes along the Oxus (modern Amu-Darya), 
and that of the Pdrdvatas or " Mountaineers," a people whom the 
Vedic Aryas fought, with the Farouetai, dwelling in the mountains, 
also of " foreign" Aryan stock. {Ibid., pp. 97, 98.) 



EARLY HISTORY. 28/ 

population of India in our own times. " India," 
writes Mr. Hunter, he who, of living men, has the 
most thorough and comprehensive knowledge of the 
immense empire, " forms a great museum of races, 
in which we can study man from his lowest to his 
highest stages of culture. 

"A museum of races " indeed ; and no one could 
say so with better authority than the writer of the 
above lines, since he compiled and published a dic- 
tionary of the non-Aryan languages of India, which 
comprises ijg languages and dialects ! Of these but 
very few, of course, can lay any claim to literary 
worth ; yet the names of several, such as Tamil, 
Telugu, Kanarese, are familiar to philologists, and 
hold their well-defined place in the lists of important 
human speeches. They form two groups, represent- 
ing two distinct and widely different types or families 
of languages, answering to the two main stocks or 
races to which respectively belong the various non- 
Aryan peoples — the Dasyus of Vedic antiquity, the 
Shudra of classical Brahmanism, the " low-castes " of 
modern Hinduism. 

8. These main stocks are the KOLARIANS and the 
Dravidians. Both came into the land at a pre- 
historic period far anterior to the Aryan invasion, 
from two opposite sides : the Kolarians from the 
east, or northeast, the Dravidians from the north- 
west — possibly through the very passes which later 
admitted the Aryan tide. If, as is probable, they 
found an older aboriginal population, no traces what- 
ever are left of that — unless some of the numerous 
sepulchral mounds be theirs, and of the rude monu- 
ments made of unhewn stofle and of upright slabs. 



28S VEDIC INDIA. 

forming the combinations known in Western Europe 
by the Celtic names of "dolmens" and " menhirs," and 
circles and avenues, like those of Stonehenge in Eng- 
land, and Karnak in Brittany. Even these crudest 
forms of monumental art cover presumably several 
centuries, for, although they betray no attempt at 
•either writing or decoration, they represent two stages 
of culture, since in some only flint implements and the 
roughest of pottery are found, while others contain 
iron weapons, gold and copper ornaments. It is 
thought that the Kolarians came first, and after 
spreading over the regions now known as Assam and 
Bengal, encountered the Dravidian current, which 
was pushing on from the other end, somewhere in 
the Vindhya highlands, about the centre of the land, 
where they converged, — or rather collided, and 
crossed each other, the weaker Kolarians being 
broken up by the shock, and dispersing among the 
valleys and forests of this most intricate, though but 
moderately high mountain-ridge, while the more 
hardy, more vigorous Dravidians swept on and 
through the ridge, and flooded the South.' 

' Mr. J. F. Hewitt, whose novel and extremely valuable papers on 
the " Early History of Northern India " {jfoiirn. of the Roy. Asiat. 
Society, tS88 and 1889) are freely used throughout this chapter, makes 
the following very explicit statement: "Wherever the three races 
have formed part of the now amalgamated population, the Kolarian 
tribes were the earliest settlers, as we always find them driven into 
the worst lands in districts wliere they live together with the other races. 
That they came from the East is shown by the following facts : First, 
they themselves always say that they did so ; secondly, the most 
powerful and purest Kolarian tribes are found in the East ; thirdly, 
their languages are allied to those used on the Brahmaputra and the 
Irawaddy by the Kambojans and the Assamese." 



290 VEDIC INDIA. 

9. The descendants of the two non-Aryan races 
are, even at the present day, easily distinguished by 
their different customs, traits of character, and re- 
ligions. The Kolarians are by far the gentler. As 
their chief representative tribe may be considered 
the Santals, who were a million strong in 1872 and 
who have their home among the hills abutting on 
the Ganges in Lower Bengal. They are among the 
more advanced of the pure-blooded non-Aryan tribes 
and have not adopted anything whatever from their 
conquerors' civilization. They have no castes or 
kings, but live in free village communities. Their 
religion amounts to little more than spirit and demon 
worship : besides the spirits of the forefathers — 
which the Kolarians, like the Dravidians, the Aryans, 
and all known races, worshipped originally from fear 
of their ghosts — there are those that dwell in each 
mountain, forest, river, well ; there is the race-god, 
the clan-god, and the god or spirit of each family. 
These tutelary spirits are supposed to dwell in large, 
ancient trees. This is why — for the modern Hindus 
have incorporated into their Brahmanic creed this 
native superstition along with many less harmless 
ones — there is in or just outside almost every vil- 
lage some gigantic tree which is at once temple, 
shrine, and meeting-place, often, too, the only host- 
elry for pedestrians to rest in ; the vast circle of 
shade which such a tree casts around thus becomes 
the centre of village life ; it even does duty as a 
mart or fair ground, where peddlers and itinerant 
venders of cakes, fruit, etc., dispose their booths and 
stands, jugglers, and snake-charmers exhibit their 



EARLY HISTORY. 



291 



tricks. Sacrifices are offered to the resident spirits — 
of cakes, honey, milk, if the people are Hindus, of 
small animals and fowls if they belong to other races, 
— and the branches flutter gaily with the ornaments 
and ex-votos hung upon them. If such a tree, as is 




22. — SANTAL TYPES. 



often the case, happens to be a banyan, with its myste- 
rious, self-planted avenues, and its tiers of leafy gal- 
leries, it becomes a suburb in itself, and the effect, 
to a foreigner's eyes, is indescribably picturesque and 
original. These solitary, sacred trees appear to be a 
survival of the very ancient practice observed by 



292 VEDIC INDIA. 

the Kolarians when they first began to clear the 
forests which barred their way — that of leaving a 
portion of it untouched and sacred to the forest 
spirits.* 

10. Of the Dravidian race, tribes are scattered 
through the central Vindhya region, while its bulk 
has, from pre-Aryan times to this day, covered the 
entire three-sided table-land sweepingly named Dek- 
han. In moral characteristics they, from the first, 
strongly contrasted with the Kolarians. They too 
live in village communities, but under a rule which 
leans more to the monarchic type, and, in all their 
ways, they show more public spirit. Equally good 
traders and farmers, they are patient, laborious, stead- 
fast, and loyal — the material out of which the Eng- 
lish trained some of those Sepoy Regiments which 
stood by Clive and Hastings through untold hard- 
ships and dangers, and some of which — far more ad- 
mirable still — did not waver in their loyalty through 
the late rebellion. Unfortunately, their religion is of 
a most barbarous character, and has exercised a 
baneful influence on that of the Aryan and semi- 
Aryan population, which professes the medley of 
Vedism, Brahmanism, and native gross superstitions, 
now known as Hinduism. They share the Kolarians' 
belief in spirits and goblins, and their priests are 
conjurers versed in all the practices and tricks of 

' That the Kolarians were the first to clear the forests and till the 
land, Mr. Hewitt is very positive ; he even thinks that, although they 
learned the use of iron very early, and cut the trees with iron weap- 
ons, the great number of stone axes or celts found in various localities 
makes it probable that they did some clearing work with stone im- 
plements before they found out the use of iron. 



EARL V HISTOR Y. 293 

Shamanism. But this is a subordinate part of their 
religion. The most essential feature of it is thewor- 
ship of the Earth, in the form of both god and god- 
dess, as the giver and maintainer of life, and the 
adoration of the Snake as- the Earth-god's special 
emblem. The Snake-god or King of Snakes is the 
wise and gigantic serpent Shesh — a name which casts 
a singularly vivid side-light on one of the many 
puzzles with which the Rig-Veda still teems. In 
several of those passages in which the priestly poets 
exhaust their ingenuity inventing abusive epithets for 
their Dasyu foes, they call them, with scathing con- 
tempt, Shishna-devas, literally : " whose God is 
Shishna or Shesh." The inference suggests itself 
almost irresistibly, and, moreover, leads us to suspect 
that many a passage wherein serpents and dragon- 
monsters are mentioned, may have a more direct and 
realistic meaning than was hitherto supposed. Thus, 
with regard to the ever-recurring battle between In- 
dra and Ahi, " the Serpent," invariably ending with 
the Aryan champion-god's victory, we cannot help 
asking ourselves : have we really always to do with 
a nature-myth ? is that battle only an incident of the 
atmospheric drama, and is the Serpent always and 
inevitably a Cloud-Serpent ? By the light of later 
ethnological studies, another and even simpler in- 
terpretation lies temptingly near : may not the ser- 
pent sometimes personate the Serpent-god of the 
Snake-worshippers — the Shishna-devas — and the bat- 
tle between the Aryan champion-god and the Dasyu 
sacred emblem thus resolve itself into a poetical 
version of the long race-strife ? It is certain, at all 



294 VEDIC INDIA. 

events, that, in the enthusiasm and novelty of recent 
discovery, mythical interpretation has been greatly 
overdone, and, just as the word " Dasyu," which was 
at first declared to designate only the demons (of 
darkness, drought, or winter) whom the bright dcvas 
fought, is proved to apply quite as often to earthly, 
human foes ; so the cloud-serpent of the uncompro- 
mising myth-theory may very well turn out to be, 
quite frequently, an allegorical presentation of the 
object of those foes' superstitious adoration. We 
are often brought down to earth from Cloudland 
with as unceremonious a shock. 

II. Be that as it may, it is certain that snake-wor- 
ship, utterly un-Aryan as it is, made a profound im- 
pression on the white invaders, so much so that, in 
the course of time, an Aryan snake-god — Ariaka — 
was invented ; an impression plainly discernible, too, 
in the prominent place given to the Nagas (snakes 
and, snake-people, half-human, half serpentine in 
form and possessed of supernatural wisdom) in the 
later classical poetry. They play an important part, 
too, in modern Hinduism, which has instituted a 
yearly festival in honor, not of mythical serpents, 
but of the real, live snakes, which do not ap- 
pear to strike this apathetic people with a loathing 
and terror at all proportionate to the havoc they 
play with human life (see p. 40). This festival, 
which comes round towards the end of July, is of 
a decidedly propitiatory character. Pilgrims flock to 
the Naga-shrines which abound in certain districts ; 
the cities teem with snake-charmers, whose weird 
charges eagerly crawl around the pans with milk 




295 



23. — FESTIVAL OF SERPENTS. 



296 VEDIC INDIA. 

placed at intervals on the ground in all the principal 
thoroughfares, before the admiring eyes of a devout 
and festive throng/ 

12. Repulsive and uncanny as this, to us unnatu- 
ral, worship appears, it is, on the whole, harmless, 
and we might dismiss it with a shrug. Not so the 
crowning feature of the Dravidian religion — human 
sacrifices, which have been in constant and universal 
use among all the tribes of this ancient race until 
put a stop to by the English quite lately — in the 
case of the Kandhs and GoNDHS, two representa- 
tive and advanced Dravidian tribes, not till 1835. 
Human victims — either bought or kidnapped — were 
offered to the Earth-god regularly twice a year, at 
seed-time and harvest-time, and on special occasions, 
when some public need or calamity appeared to call 
for conciliation or atonement. Nothing can be more 
averse to the Aryan spirit than such sacrifices, at least 
at the stage of moral development at which we be- 
come acquainted with the race ; yet such is the influ- 
ence of long contact and habit, that we find even 
this horrible practice adopted by modern Hinduism 
in one of its two principal sects (Shivaism). The 
pure Brahmanism of the post-vedic and classical 
periods was not guilty of any such compromise, and 
such was the horror with which these aborigines in- 

^ It is worthy of notice : ist, that temples dedicated to serpents are 
not found in the North of India ; 2d, that the priests of such tem- 
ples are never Brahmans, but belong to the lower castes. Indeed, the 
old Aryan spirit is so much alive still in the noble castes, that they 
hold the serpent to be of evil omen and a Brahman, if he happens to 
see one in the morning, will give up for that day whatever work or 
errand he may have on hand. 



EARLY HISTORY, 



297 



spired the Aryan Hindus, that their always exuberant 
fancy transformed them into a race of cannibal giants, 




24, — GONDH TYPES, 



fiends, and wizards, possessed of supernatural pow- 
ers and every evil art that magic can lend, even 
to that of flying through space and assuming any 



298 VEDIC INDIA. 

form at will — thus transferring to them the attrib- 
utes of the old Vedic cloud-demons whose place 
they took in the classical mythology of the race. 
These Rakshasas, whose horrible aspect and mur- 
derous wickedness make them the counterpart — or 
possibly the prototype — of our nurseries' Ogre, are 
described as taking especial delight in defiling sac- 
rifices, disturbing the devotions of pious forest her- 
mits, or leading them into unseemly temptations, 
carrying ofT pure and holy maidens, and opposing, by 
force or wile, the advance of the fire-worshipping, 
Soma-pressing " friends of the Devas." The Rama- 
yana is full of their evil prowesses ; indeed the 
Rakshasas clearly stand out as the main obstacle 
encountered by Rama in his campaign against Cey- 
lon, which embodies in heroic and epic guise the 
Aryan invasion of the South,' although it was in 
reality neither so rapid, nor quite so successful as the 
national poem would lead us to think. It was not so 
much an invasion as an advance, and we can easily 
imagine that it must have been an achievement of 
no small difficulty for a body of men necessarily 
very inferior in numbers, in the face of a compact 
population, brave, stubborn, and strongly organized. 
Such the Dravidians are now, Avhen they number 
over twenty-eight millions south of the Vindhya, and 
there is not the slightest reason to doubt that such, 
in the main, they were at the early time of their 
long patriotic struggle. 

' See Frontispiece — the Rakshasa king of Lanka, Ravana, with 
ten heads and ten pair of arms, each wielding ia different weapon, 
defending his island at the head of his hosts of black giants. 



EARL V HIS TOR Y. 299 

13. We are often told to look on the non-Aryan 
peoples of modern India if we would picture to our- 
selves those whom the Aryan immigrants had to 
deal with from the moment they set foot in the 
land of the Seven Rivers. " Many of the aboriginal 
tribes," writes Mr. Hunter, " remain in the same 
early stage of human progress as that ascribed to 
them by the Vedic poets more than 3000 years 
ago." The instances of which he proceeds to give 
a list show conclusively that, in this wonderful 
country, the human race presents as great a variety 
as the animal and vegetable worlds, and covers the 
entire range of possible development, from pole to 
pole, of highest culture and spirituality, reached ages 
ago by some of its denizens, down to the lowest 
depths in which degraded humanity can drag itself 
and be human still. We seem to listen to the gro- 
tesque fancies of a dream — wild even for a dream — 
when we are told of people who live, or at least 
huddle together for shelter, in kennel-huts, six feet 
by eight, wear no clothing but bunches of leaves 
fastened to a string of beads that encircles the waist, 
and use flint weapons, not having even words for 
any metals in their language, thus affording us a 
startling glimpse of the Stone Age, a survival not 
even of the highest type of that age's civilization. 
Yet such a tribe, under the graphic name of " Leaf- 
wearers," actually exists, in the hilly districts of 
Orissa, not very far from Calcutta ; it was ten thou- 
sand strong in 1872, and though a considerable por- 
tion were persuaded by the English authorities to 
adopt some kind of clothing and given the neces- 



306 



VEDIC INDIA. 



sary cotton material, it is reported that many have 
since returned to their foHage costume. Not much 
higher rank certain broken tribes who live in the 
mountains south of Madras, with no fixed dwel- 
lings of any sort, wandering about in the wildest 
recesses, only resting or seeking temporary shelter 
under little improvised leaf-sheds — existing on jungle 
products, mice, and other such small animals as they 
can catch, — and worshipping wicked demons, so that 
the question which naturally occurred to them when 







24. — ANCIENT TYPE OF DWELLINGS DISCOVERED IN THE HIMALAYAS, 
AMONG NON-ARYAN TRIBES. 

missionaries told them of a great and all-powerful 
God was : " And what if that Mighty One should 
eat us?" Some hill-tribes of Assam are described 
as " fierce, black, undersized, and ill-fed." Until 
very lately they lived on their more peaceable and 
industrious neighbors of the plains — in what man- 
ner can be gathered from the names of two such 
clans, which, translated, mean respectively, " The 
Eaters of a Thousand Hearths " and " The Thieves 
who Lurk in the Cotton-field." 



EARL V HISTORY. 



301 



14. Doubtless, such were some — many, of the ab- 
origines, or Dasyus, whom the Aryan immigrants 
found in possession, and whom they drove before 
them or reduced to subjection, certainly with no 
gentle hand. But it were a great and fatal mistake 
— fatal to sound historical criticism — were we to 
imagine that the entire population of the land stood 
on this lowest level of barbarism. It is to be feared 
that this error was, at one time, only too generally 
entertained ; but it could proceed only from a super- 




25. — ANCIENT TYPE OF DWELLINGS DISCOVERED IN THE HIMALAYAS, 
AMONG NON-ARYAN TRIBES. 



ficial study of the Rig-Veda, or from insufficient 
means of research on a field so very lately opened : 
or — and it is probable that this was a frequent 
and fruitful source of error — from too blind a con- 
fidence in certain theories which, indeed, had an 
ample foundation of truth, so that the fault lay not 
so much in them as in the exaggerated enthusiasm 
which accepted them too unconditionally, to the ex- 
clusion of other elements. Comparative Mythology 



302 ■ VEDIC INDIA. 

is a new science even now. Its first discoveries, 
some forty years ago, coupled with those of its twin- 
science. Comparative Philology, were so startling 
that they dazzled its votaries. The Sun-and-Dawn 
Myth and the Storm Myth, ubiquitously identical, 
were a revelation, the ** Opeyi Sesame " to a long list 
of puzzles, in which problems of race, language, re- 
ligion, poetry, had been heretofore tangled into a 
very jungle of mostly unanswerable questions, which, 
however, pleasantly untwined at the touch of the 
new talisman — the key, as was believed, to every 
lock. A band of brilliant scholars took hold of the 
Rig-Veda and subjected it, hymn after hymn, verse 
by verse, to the mythological system of interpreta- 
tion which it had first suggested and splendidly justi- 
fied, and under their deft, ingenious fingers there 
grew a world of gods and demons, a world that was 
not of earth and in which humanity had no part, 
save in the persons of priests and worshippers. By 
a sleight-of-hand, of which the trick became very easy 
to catch, every king or hero became an impersona- 
tion of the Sun or the Thunderer, every maiden 
was the Dawn, every enemy a fiend of Darkness or 
Drought, and in this manner all the proper names, 
with which the Rig-Veda bristles, were accounted for 
mythically, without leaving a loophole for History to 
put in a timid claim. A closer, more dispassionate 
study, conducted by a later, more cool-headed gen- 
eration of scholars — cool, because not elated with 
the fever of the discoverer, the pioneer — revealed 
that many of the hymns were invaluable historical 
documents, commemorating real events, and per- 



EARLY HISTORY. 303 

petuating the names of the leading actors therein. 
And it becomes patent that probably a majority of 
the common names, which were sweepingly set down 
as names of fiends and other supernatural agents, 
really are those of tribes, peoples, and men, while 
many an alleged atmospheric battle turns out to 
have been an honest, sturdy hand-to-hand conflict 
between bona-fide human, mortal champions. 

15. It is a thousand pities that the Rig-Veda does 
not contain history in the direct narrative or epic 
form, but only in that indirect and fragmentary form 
which is known as " internal evidence." The reason 
is that the book represents, not a simple and primi- 
tive stage of culture, as has been, somewhat rashly, 
taken for granted for a number of years, but, on the 
contrary, an advanced and complex one, which had 
developed some essential social institutions, such as 
royalty, aristocracy, and priesthood, in clean-cut, 
strongly set frames, on the background of an already 
long and eventful national past. The consequence 
is that the hymns which we may designate as in a 
specially direct sense " historical " ones, are full of 
allusions to occurrences which every one is supposed 
to know about, of names familiar to all. And where 
the occurrences and the names do belong exclusively 
to the world of Myth, that also was too well and too 
generally understood to require explanation. Thus 
it comes to pass that the kernel of historical fact for 
which we seek is, to us late-comers, unaided as we 
are by any thinnest thread of memory or tradition, 
imbedded in an almost impenetrable thickness of 
hardest outer shells and prickliest burrs. Yet 



304 VEDIC INDIAN 

enough very essential facts have already been 
elicited by close and minute study, to form an inter- 
esting and on the whole not unreliable general pre- 
sentation of the Aryan advance from their first 
quarters in the Penjab eastward to that vast region 
watered by the historical Ganges and Djumna, which 
became the centre and headquarters of the race when 
the Vedic era had glided by and merged into the 
Brahmanic period. 

i6. Scant as we think the material which the Rig- 
Veda supplies for a reconstruction of an age too 
remote to be called epic, let alone historical, the re- 
sults obtained are yet important enough to justify 
an epitome of them even in a popular work so neces- 
sarily limited in scope and space as the present. A 
few broad strokes of the brush will sketch an outline 
which will keep filling itself in with every added de- 
tail or scrap of internal evidence, from the moment 
the point of view and the perspective are properl] 
established — and it is these which will have to be. 
shifted considerably from the originally accepted, 
long maintained lines, producing, on the whole, an 
entirely different picture, and one which, while it 
opens out a vista into a remoter past than was here- 
tofore credited to our knowledge of India, presents 
some (if we may so express it) startlingly modern 
features ; only another way of reasserting what has 
been found out by philosophizing students of our 
race so many ages ago as to have become a truism, 
namely that " history repeats itself," and that " there 
is nothing new under the sun." 

17, Thirty-five years ago no one would have 



EARLY HISTORY. 305 

thought of connecting India (pre-Aryan India), with 
archaic Babylonia, and if a sohtary fact pointing that 
way was once in a while picked out by an excep- 
tionally inquisitive and observant mind, it was suf- 
fered to remain unexplained, as a sort of natural 
curiosity, for the inferences it suggested were too 
startling to be more than hinted at. Eminently 
such a mind was the late Francois Lenormant, and 
he laid great stress on the use of the word mand as 
early as the Rig- Veda, to denote a definite quantity 
of gold ' — a word which can be traced to ancient 
Chaldea, or Semitic Babylonia, with the same mean- 
ing, and which afterwards passed into the Greek 
monetary system {mnd, still later latinized into 
mind). Well, this little fact simply points to a 
well established commercial intercourse between 
Dravidian India (for the Kolarians never came as far 
west as the land by the Indian Ocean) and Babylonia 
or Chaldea. And now, years after, chance brings 
two more discoveries, individually as trifling ; yet, 
linked together, the three form a chain of evidence 
as complete as it is strong. In the ruins of Mugheir, 
ancient Ur of the Chaldees, built by Ur-Ea (or Ur- 
Bagash) the first king of united Babylonia, who ruled 
not less than 3000 years B.C., was found a piece of 
Indian teak. * This evidence is exceptionally con- 
clusive because, as it happens, this particular tree is 
to be located with more than ordinary accuracy : it 
grows in Southern India (Dekhan) where it advances 

' Rig-Veda viii., 67 (or 78), 2 : " Oh bring us jewels, cattle, horses, 
and a mand of gold" 

^ Sayce, Hibbei't Lectures for 1887, PP> ^2> ^3^> ^37* 



3o6 VEDIC INDIA. 

close to the Malabar coast, and nowhere else ; there 
is none north of the Vindhya. Then again, the 
precious vocabularies and lists of all kinds of things 
and names which those precise old Babylonians were 
so fond of making out and which have given us so 
many startling surprises, come to the fore with a bit 
of very choice information, namely that the old 
Babylonian name for muslin was sindhu, i. e. that 
the stuff was simply called by the name of the coun- 
try which exported it. 

1 8. This is very strong corroborative evidence of 
several important facts, viz . that the Aryan settlers 
of Northern India had already begun, at an amazingly 
early period, to excel in the manufacture of the 
delicate tissue which has ever been and is to this day 
— doubtless in incomparably greater perfection — one 
of their industrial glories, a fact which implies culti- 
vation of the cotton plant or tree, probably in Vedic 
times already* ; — that their Dravidian contemporaries 
were enterprising traders ; that the relations be- 
tween the two races were by no means of an exclu- 
sively hostile and warlike nature. For, if the name 
sindhu proves the stuff to have been an Aryan pro- 
duct, it was certainly not Aryan export trade which 

* It is well known that our name for the fine and dainty fabric 
called "muslin " {mousseline) is derived from that of the city on the 
Tigris, Mosul, which, throughout the Middle Ages and to the present 
day, has been famous for its fabrication. How long before — who can 
tell? An imaginative and inquisitive mind might wonder whether, 
if all the links could be recovered and joined together, this particu- 
lar industry might not be traceable to those almost prehistoric 
commercial relations between Dravidian India and Chaldean Baby- 
lonia. Did the latter learn the art from India and import the cotton 
from there — and did the Assyrians carry it north along with other 
arts ? A stupendous issue to hang on so frail a thing ! 



EARLY HISTORY. 307 

supplied the foreign markets with it, for there was no 
such trade, the Aryas of Penjab not being acquainted 
with the sea, or the construction of sea-going ships. 
It is clear that the weaving of fine stuffs must have 
been an Aryan home-industry ; that Dravidian trad- 
ers — probably itinerant merchants or peddlers — col- 
lected the surplus left over from home consumption, 
certainly in the way of barter, the goods then finding 
their way to some commercial centre on the western 
coast, where the large vessels lay which carried on the 
regular export and import trade. All this internal 
evidence is still further strengthened by another item 
of information which, though coming from a very 
different quarter, dovetails into it exactly. Professor 
Max Miiller has long ago shown that the names of 
certain rare articles which King Solomon's trading 
ships brought him, were not originally Hebrew.' 
These articles are sandal-wood (indigenous on the 
Malabar coast and nowhere else), ivory, apes and 
peacocks, and their native names, which could easily 
be traced through the Hebrew corruptions, have all 
along been set down as Sanskrit, being common words 
of that language. But now, quite lately, an eminent 
Dravidian scholar and specialist brings proof that 
they are really Dravidian words, introduced into 
Sanskrit.'^ This is a dazzling ray of light, and proof 
so conclusive, when added to an already strong and 
compact case, that further corroborative evidence 
would be welcome, but scarcely necessary.^ 

' Science of Language, First Series, pp. 203, 204 (1862). 

" Dr. Caldwell, Introduction to his Comparative Grammar of the 
Dravidian Languages. 

^ Compare the sculptures on Shalmaneser's Black Obelisk, Story 
of Assyria^ pp. 185-195. 



308 VEDIC INDIA. 

19. The late Greek historian Arrian mentions a 
maritime city, Patala, as the only place of note in 
the delta of the Indus. This city, very probably the 
port from which the muslin went forth, and which is 
identified with modern Hyderabad, is renowned in 
legend and epos as the capital of a king of the Snake 
race — i. e., a Dravidian king — who ruled a large part 
of the surrounding country. This native dynasty is 
closely connected with the mythical traditions of the 
two races, through its founder. King Vasuki — a 
name which at once recalls the great Serpent Vasuki, 
who played so important, if passive, a part on a mem- 
orable mythic occasion (see p. 187). The connection 
between the Dravidians of Northern and Western 
India and the first Babylonian Empire, — the Baby- 
lonia of the Shumiro-Accads, before the advent of 
the Semites' — becomes less surprising when we 
realize that there was between them something more 
than chance relations, that they were in fact of the 
same race or stock — that which is broadly designated 
as Turanian. Philology points that way, for the 
Dravidian languages are agglutinative ; craniology 
will not disprove the affinity, for a glance at the 
Gondh types on illustration No. 23, and the turbaned 
head of Tell-Loh (Accadian Sirgulla) will show the 
likeness in features and shape.'^ But even more con- 
vincing is the common sacred symbol — the Serpent, 
the emblem of the worship of Earth, with its mystery, 
its wealth and its forces. The Accadian supreme 
god Ea was worshipped at his holiest shrine at 

' See Story of Chaldea, ch. iii., " Turanian Chaldea," and ch. iv. 
^ Ibid., p. 214. 



EARLY HISTORY. 



309 



Eridhu under the form of a Serpent, and as Eridhu 
was the centre from which the first Chaldean civihza- 




26. — HEAD OF ANCIENT CHALDEAN. FROM TELL-LOH (SIRGULLA.) 
SARZEC COLLECTION. (ABOUT 4OOO B.C.) 




27. — SAME, PROFILE VIEW. 

tion started and spread, so the serpent-symbol was 
accepted as that of the race and its religion.' The 

^ See Stoiy of Chaldea, pp. 215, 246, 287. 



3IO VEDIC INDIA. 

Turanian Proto-Medes also, before they were con- 
quered by the Aryan followers of Zarathushtra/ 
worshipped the snake-symbol of Earth, which after- 
wards was identified by the Eranian Mazdayasnians 
with Angramainyush, the Evil One, the Spirit of 
Lie and Death. This Proto-Median Serpent, like 
his Dravidian brother, had the honor of being ad- 
mitted into the Aryan Mythic Epos. The snake- 
king (originally snake-god) AjI-Dahak (" the Biting 
Serpent ") figures in the mythical legends embodied 
in the Eranian ShaH-Nameh (" Book of Kings ") as 
the wicked Turanian king Afrasiab, whose shoulders 
were kissed by the Evil One, when there sprouted 
from them two living snakes, who had to be fed 
daily on human brains — a pretty close equivalent 
of the Dravidian human sacrifices, — until the in- 
vincible Eranian hero, as in duty bound, delivered 
the world from the threefold monster.'' But the 
most remarkable bequest left to classical Aryan 
India by the intimacy between her pre-Aryan in- 
habitants and their Chaldean race-brethren, is the 
legend of the Deluge, in which the part of Hasi- 
sadra and the Biblical Noah is given to the Aryan 
sage and progenitor of the present human race, 
Manu. The story has no roots in Aryan myth, 

^ See Story of Media ^ etc., pp. 144, 267, 268. 

^ The Shah-Nameh is the Eranian national epic. It was written, 
in the eleventh century, by the poet Firdausi, at the suggestion of 
his patron, the great Sultan Mahmud of Gazna. It purports to be 
the history of Persia from the earliest times down to that monarch's 
reign, but is really, at least the first half of it, a complete collection 
of the hero-myths of the Eranian race, embodying the glorious 
memories of the life-long struggle between Eran and Turan. 



EARL Y HIS TOR Y. 3 1 1 

in which it stands alone, unconnected with any of 
its legends, being evidently torn out of its own 
native cycle of the Izdubar poems. It would form 
too long a digression in the middle of a chapter; we 
will therefore do it justice best by reserving a sep- 
arate appendix for it.* 

20. There is one fundamental axiom which should 
be firmly kept in sight from the outset, as, by so 
doing, much confusion and wrong theorizing will be 
avoided. It is that a people zvho speaks a certain lan- 
guage does not necessarily belong to the race which 
originated that language. This proposition, when 
applied to individuals, will appear self-evident. But 
in dealing with whole communities, national or 
tribal, especially in more or less remote antiquity, 
it has for a time been strangely overlooked. There 
prevailed a general tendency to forget that a com- 
munity, as well as an individual, may acquire a 
foreign language from a variety of reasons. It may 
do so from choice (retaining its own the while), for 
friendly purposes of trade and political intercourse ; 
or from necessity, if not compulsion, on being reduced 
to subjection by an alien conquering race. Concilia- 
tion follows on conquest ; intermarriage completes 
the work of amalgamation ; mixed races are the 
result ; the language at first imposed as a stamp of 
bondage remains as a pledge of amity; frequently, if 
the invading race is intellectually the higher, to the 
exclusion of the original, native tongue. But a 
language does not mean merely a bundle of words 
and names ; it means a subtle, all-pervading influence, 

1 See pp. 335/". 



312 VEDIC INDIA. 

and the race that adopts, no matter from what 
motives, another race's language, ends by absorbing 
also what that language carries with and in itself : 
the spirit, the soul which that race breathed into 
it, as embodied in its religion, forms of worship, 
social institutions, popular poetry, and ethics. These 
things, when once they have gained a hold, spread 
and propagate by all manner of channels, and thus 
it may come to pass that a people will speak a 
language, follow a religion, practise forms of life, 
originally not their own. It is therefore utterly un- 
scientific to say, for instance, " such and such a 
people speaks an Aryan language ; consequently it is 
of Aryan stock " ; for ethnology, with its attendant 
sciences, physiology and craniology, may positively 
demonstrate that it is no such thing ; at all events 
our decision must wait on their verdict. Without 
being scientific, the Aryas of India knew this well : 
it is expressly inculcated in their standard code, the 
Laws of Manu, that " all those tribes in this world " 
which do not belong to the three twice-born castes 
are Dasyus, wJietJicr they speak the language of the 
Mlekkhas (Barbarians) or that of the Aryas (X., 45). 
The only warranted conclusion in such a case would 
be that the said people had at some time been sub- 
jected to a powerful, transforming Aryan influence ; 
as to the people of Aryan race who were the bearers 
of that influence, they may, or may not, have passed 
away from the land or region to which they left the 
most enduring part of themselves — their spirit. 

21. This hypothetical case represents a reality 
which confronts us all through history, in all times 



EA RL V HIS TOR Y. 3 1 3 

and parts of the world. But it is comparatively rare 
for a morally victorious race to vanish from a land, 
whose population its influence affected so deeply 
and so lastingly, without leaving any traces of its 
physical presence. At this late age of the world, 
when intercourse and amalgamation have shaken 
most of the barriers between race and race, and 
pulled down so many, mixed races are the rule, the 
mixture running through innumerable grades and 
shadings ; and, in proportion as one or another stock 
predominates in a given fraction of humanity, the 
spiritual characteristics belonging to it assert them- 
selves. This is precisely what we see in modern 
India. The whole of the huge continent is permeated 
with Aryan influences. To the Aryan race it owes 
its name, its culture in the main, its distinctive 
national language and literature. Yet what lack of 
uniformity ! Side by side with the Sanskrit dialects 
are spoken about 150 non-Aryan languages and 
dialects ; the variety in physical types and features is 
as great, ranging from the noble Aryan to the low 
Negroid ; the official national religion, Brahmanism, 
encloses in its fold several powerful sects which are 
manifestly growths of widely different spiritual soils; 
and no wonder, when, of the 200,000,000 which make 
the Indian Empire (not including the Feudatory 
Provinces), the census of 1872 showed only 16,000- 
000 of Brahmans and Rajputs (corresponding to 
the Kshatriyas, originally called Rajanyas), — " the 
comparatively pure offspring of the Aryan or Sans- 
krit-speaking Race " ^ ; while 11,000,000 represented 

* W. W . Hunter, The Indian Empire, etc. 



314 VEDIC INDIA. 

" the great Mixed Population, known as the Hindus, 
which has grown out of the Aryan and non-Aryan 
elements, chiefly from the latter"; the rest being 
the recognized non- Aryan tribes or Aborigines. 

22. It will be a surprise to many that the Aryan 
population of the Indian continent should be so out 
of all proportion small when compared to the de- 
scendants and representatives of those races which 
the Aryan immigrants found in possession. The 
same difference must have existed on a still greater 
scale in those earliest times — and would alone sufifice 
to stamp as irrational the theory of Aryan supremacy 
having been established by sheer conquest and force. 
Of course there was fighting, and raiding, and driving 
of native tribes into mountain fastnesses, while others 
were reduced to a state of bondage. But this would 
account for only a very small portion of the Aryas' 
success ; for the laws of overwhelming numerical 
odds can be defied only within certain limits, even 
by the bravest. But it has ever been one of our 
race's chief and truest claims to glory, that it has 
asserted, extended, and maintained its superiority 
far more by moral means than by physical force. 
Three agencies were, beyond doubt, mainly active 
and successful in propagating Aryan intellectual in- 
fluence and, as a consequence, Aryan material rule : 
commercial intercourse, foreign diplomacy helped 
by an innate spirit of adventure, and missionary 
work. Intermarriages, of course, did the rest. 

23. It has always been a characteristic custom 
among Aryan nations for their warriors to work off 
their exuberant energies by going forth in search of 



EARLY HISTORY. 315 

adventures abroad, frequently in the form of robbing 
raids or piratical expeditions, but quite as often by 
taking military service with neighboring, or even 
remoter, states or sovereigns, singly or in bands. 
Opportunities of the kind must have been plentiful 
with the Aryan youth of the Seven Rivers, sur- 
rounded as they were with numerous tribes, with 
whom war must have been a habitual occupation. 
This naturally paved the way for political alliances, 
and there were those at home who were not slow to 
decide that such was the surest, and in the end quick- 
est way to extend and establish Aryan influence. 
These were the spiritual leaders of the people, the 
priestly class which was in time to develop and 
crystallize into the Brahman caste. In the Rig-Veda 
we find these most influential persons belonging to 
the families of hereditary poets and bards — Rishis — 
whose names are handed down as the composers of 
the sacred hymns. Seven of the books in the collec- 
tion are attributed each to one of these Rishis, who 
are shown by many allusions and direct assertions in 
the text to have been attached to the royal families of 
different tribes, where they occupied the position not 
only oi purohitas or family priests and national bards, 
but evidently also that of royal advisers and ministers 
■ — a custom which meets us as a fully developed and 
sacred institution all through the later Brahmanic 
period. But it turns out, on closer inspection, that 
these royal houses and the tribes they rule, are by no 
means always Aryan, and it is startling, at first, with 
our still lingering prejudices, to find an Aryan priest 
glorying in the position of bard and piirohita to a 



3l6 VEDTC INDIA. 

Dasyu — /, e. native^king and people. Yet we have 
to get familiar with the fact, which opens out a 
whole vista of missionary work, conversions, priestly 
ambition — and sound national policy. 

24. Every one who has lived in India knows — and 
the English learned it to their cost at the time of the 
great mutiny — what almost unlimited influence the 
wandering home-missionaries have over the popula- 
tion. When such z. guru (spiritual instructor) makes 
his rounds, the people of the villages which he 
honors with a visit pour out to meet him and carry 
him to their homes under demonstrations of respect 
almost amounting to worship. Within historical, 
even modern times, such men have been known to 
rise to the highest positions at the courts of native 
potentates, as prime ministers or as unofBcial, but 
all the more powerful, private advisers of the master. 
Such must have been the Aryan missionaries of the 
Vedic times, who carried the worship of Agni and 
Soma into the lands of the Serpent together with 
Aryan speech and customs. The process of conver- 
sion must have been a simple matter enough. A 
ceremony of initiation, significantly named " a second 
birth," — a simple confession of faith — and the impure 
brood of the Serpent was transformed into the 
" twice-born " child of the bright Devas and admitted 
into the Aryan spiritual community, the Aryan po- 
litical confederacy. Now there is in the Rig-Veda a 
short verse which, under the name of Gayatri, is to 
this day considered the most sacred of all texts, en- 
dowed with miraculous powers, and has, through 
over a score and a half of centuries, been repeated 




28. — RECEPTION OF A GURU OR SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTOR. 



.CI7 



3l8 VEDIC INDIA. 

thrice a day at least, with fervent faith, by number- 
less millions of human beings. It reads as follows 
in the translation : 

' ' Of Savitar, the heavenly, that longed for glory may we win, and 
may himself inspire our prayers." — (HI., 62, 10.) 

This text at first sight appears so insignificant as 
to make the exceeding holiness attached to it some- 
thing of a puzzle. Our perplexity however vanishes 
if we assume it to have been the confession of faith 
demanded of converts — as this would fully account 
for its sacredness, which endures unimpaired to this 
day. We can have no proof that this mantra was 
used for this particular purpose, but there is nothing 
to make it improbable. Its briefness and simplicity 
make it appropriate ; it is comprehensive too, as the 
sky-and-sun-worship, a form and development of 
fire-worship, might well be taken as the symbol of 
the bright Aryan nature-religion in opposition to the 
mystic and gloomy earth-worship represented by its 
weird emblem, the Serpent. This supposition is still 
further and very greatly favored by the circum- 
stance that the Gayatri is found in the collection 
attributed to the Rishi Vishvamitra. And here we 
come on the thin end of a wedge which, being inserted 
at this early time, sprung a cleft which runs through 
the entire epic and religious hfe of India : the schism 
between the two Brahmanic schools which have their 
names from the two — probably real — Vedic Rishis 
Vasishtha and Vishvamitra. 

25. To keep strictly within the information sup- 
plied by the Rig-Veda itself — Vasishtha was the 



EARL V HISTOR Y. 3 19 

bard of the Tritsu, the leading and purest Aryan 
tribe, and Vishvamitra was the bard of the Bhara- 
TAS, their great enemies and one of the most power- 
ful native tribes. He at one time had been with the 
Tritsu, and for whatever cause he left them — not 
improbably personal revenge — he played a conspicu- 
ous part in the confederacy which attempted to 
check the Aryan advance and increasing power. 
There is a hymn (53), in Book III., that of the Vish- 
vamitra family, which evidently alludes to this very 
thing. In the first part of the hymn it is said that 
when Vishvamitra conducted King Sudas' sacrifices, 
Indra was gracious to him for the Rishi's sake, and 
a great blessing is pronounced on the king, and his 
war-steed and the expedition on which he starts. 
Then, quite suddenly, Vishvamitra is made to declare, 
in his own person, that his prayers protect the tribes 
of the Bharatas, and the hymn ends with four verses 
of imprecations against enemies who are not named, 
but whom tradition so positively identified with 
Vasishtha and his family, that the priests of this 
house in later times never uttered these four verses, 
and tried not to hear them when spoken by other 
Brahmans. It is most probable that the Vishvami- 
tras resented some distinction conferred upon the 
Vasishthas, possibly their appointment as purohitas 
to the Tritsu royal family, and went over to their 
most powerful enemies, the Purus and Bharatas. 
The Tritsu and their allies were victorious in the 
ensuing struggle, known as " the War of the Ten 
Kings," and both the bards have left descriptions of 
it and of the final battle on the banks of the Purushni, 



320 VEDIC INDIA. 

in some spirited hymns, the most undoubtedly his- 
torical of the collection. At a later period the fol- 
lowers of Vasishtha and his descendants represent the 
narrowly orthodox Brahmanic school, with its petty 
punctiliousness in the matter of forms, rites, obser- 
vances, its intolerance of everything un-Aryan, its 
rigid separatism. This school it was which stood 
guard through all these ages, and up to our day, the 
champion — and possibly originally the institutor, of 
Caste ; who advanced and upheld all the exaggerated 
claims of the Brahman priesthood, to divinity, to the 
rule of the world, and ownership of all it holds, to 
supernatural compelling powers over nature and the 
gods themselves through sacrifice and ascetic prac- 
tices, and the like. The followers of Vishvamitra 
and his descendants, on the other hand, represented 
the school of liberalism and progress, of conciliation 
and amalgamation ; it was probably through their 
efforts chiefly that Aryan speech and worship and, as 
a consequence, Aryan supremacy, spread among the 
native princes and their tribes. But it must also 
have been owing to this their policy of conciliation 
that many of the beliefs and practices of the once 
loathed aborigines gradually crept into Aryan wor- 
ship, and gained a footing there, paving the way for 
the mixed forms of Hinduism in the future. Their 
orthodox antagonists blamed and despised them for 
this laxity, wherein they saw a danger which they 
strove to avert by redoubled zeal in keeping high 
and strong the bulwark of Caste ; and while they 
could not deny the holiness and authority of one 
who ranks with their own Rishi in the Rig-Veda 



EARLY HISTORY. 321 

itself, they found a vent for their hatred and spite 
in the assertion that Vishvamitra was not originally 
a Brahman but a Kshatriya, and had obtained the 
highest rank only by superhuman feats of asceti- 
cism which compelled the gods to grant him the con- 
secration he desired. The feud between the two 
bards and their respective descendants is a favorite 
theme in later Brahmanic literature, where it is 
invested, both in poetical and theological writings, 
with the usual exuberance af fancy and extravagance 
of detail and incident. We find nothing of the kind 
in the Rig-Veda, where the beginning of the differ- 
ence is not narrated at all, and only shows from the 
context of the so-called historical hymns. Very sig- 
nificant, in the light of these, is the line in which 
Vishvamitra praises his adopted tribe, the Bhara- 
tas, calling them " far-sighted people," — probably 
in opposition to his former patrons, the orthodox 
and narrow-minded Tritsu. All this shows us the 
institution of the castes in a novel and most natural, 
convincing light : as a reaction, on the part of the 
strictly orthodox worshippers of Agni and Soma, 
against the alarmingly broad and levelling tendencies 
of the missionary work done by some enthusiastic 
preachers who combined religious zeal with far-see- 
ing diplomacy. High Church against Low Church. 
The native converts, received at first on equal 
terms, began at a later period — probably that of the 
early Brahmanas — to be admitted only on condition 
that they should occupy a subordinate position — 
whence the Shudra caste. It will be noticed, how- 
ever, that both systems — the orthodox and the 



322 VEDic mniA. 

liberal, help to carry out what Mr. Hewitt calls "the 
great Brahman conception of a number of subor- 
dinate tribes ruled by a very small Aryan minority." 
26. The host of proper names in the Rig-Veda must 
have plunged the first who made them a special study 
into a state of chaotic bewilderment bordering on 
desperation. Where was the clue, where the saving 
thread in this labyrinth ? What names were those 
— of gods, of demons, of men, of nations, of places? 
This first sorting, with due margin for correcting 
mistakes, was a gigantic task. And when at last the 
names of nations and tribes were set apart with 
tolerable certainty, there still remained the appar- 
ently hopeless difficulty of locating them, geographi- 
cally and ethnologically. Everything that could 
help in the work was brought together: every 
indication supplied by internal evidence, by the 
patient collation of passages, by a minute study of 
the great epics, by gleaning every crumb of informa- 
tion, however fragmentary, however corrupt, scat- 
tered in foreign writings, whether of Greek or Arab. 
All these rays, some of them very pale and uncertain, 
gave, when concentrated, a search-light strong enough 
to dispel the thickest of the gloom that lay on that 
vast and ancient field, and afford revealing glimpses 
of most suggestive landmarks. If we trace certain 
names right through the Rig- Veda, simply writing 
down each line, or verse, in which they occur, we 
will be astonished at the amount of information 
which will result from this mechanical proceeding; 
and if we repeat it with several names, the feeling of 
confusion will soon wear away, and make room for a 



EARL V HIS TOR V. 323 

delightful, increasing sense of order and clearness. 
Whole leading groups stand out, and of some 
royal houses we obtain in this way genealogies or 
dynasties covering several generations — yielding, by 
the way, additional evidence, if such were needed, of 
the slow growth of the Rig-Veda in its finished form. 
Two of these dynasties run parallel from father to 
son, and are closely connected throughout. They 
are the royal houses of the Tritsu, whose />uro/iita 
or chaplain was the orthodox Vasishtha, and that of 
the PURU, their friends and allies. The glory of 
each of these houses appears to have culminated in 
a tribal hero : the Tritsu DivODASA, and KUTSA 
the Puru, or Purukutsa. These two peoples, to- 
gether with three others, the Yadu, the TURVASU, 
and the Anu, are frequently mentioned collectively 
in the Rig-Veda as " The Five Tribes " or *' Five 
Races." 

27. The Tritsu are beyond doubt the chief Aryan 
nation of early Vedic times — perhaps the original 
invaders of the Penjab. If peaceful methods were 
used, it was not by this tribe ; their conquest was all 
by war, and though they had alliances among the 
Dasyu nations, many of the latter gradually turned 
against them and at last formed a confederacy with 
the object of stopping their too rapid advance east- 
ward, as they took possession of one river after 
another. Their first great king, Divodasa, was 
engaged in a continuous warfare with some fierce 
mountain tribes of the north, ruled by a chieftain of 
the name of Shambara, who appears to have con- 
structed a quantity of forts in defence of the many 



324 VEDIC INDIA. 

passes which lead from the highlands into the 
steeper and wilder Himalayan fastnesses. These 
forts, of course, were built of wood, so that the usual 
mode of attack and destruction in these petty cam- 
paigns was by fire. ' This is why, in the numerous 
passages in which these exploits of Divodasa are 
glorified, both by Vasishtha, the bard of his family, 
and others, Agni often shared with Indra the credit 
of the victory. For some reason these forts are 
always spoken of as being ninety or ninety-nine — 
probably a way of saying " a great many." ** O 
Lightning-bearer," the poet exclaims in one place, 
" these are thy deeds that thou destroyedst nine- 
and-ninety castles in one day, and the hundredst at 
night." — The Tritsu must have had their hands, 
very full, for, while continually busy in the north, 
they were fighting a great deal in the southeast ; 
sometimes they pressed onwards, sometimes only 
held their own against native tribes who strove to 
prevent their crossing now one river, now another. 
On the whole they were successful, and victories are 
recorded, both of Divodasa and his son — or grandson 
— SUDAS, over various nations, especially the Yadu 
and Turvasu, tv/in tribes always named together, 
who appear to have lived south of the Seven Rivers, 
between the Indus and the Yamuna. Yet these two 
tribes were mostly of Aryan stock, and nearly con- 
nected with the Aryas of the Indus and Sarasvati. 
To make up for this, the Purus, a powerful, orig- 
inally Dravidian race, who lived in the West and 
had a standing feud with the horse-breeding Gand- 
HARAS of the Kabul valley, were for a long time the 



EARLY HISTORY. 325 

Tritsu's firm allies. Indra and Agni are said to pro- 
tect both and help them in their wars against their 
common enemies. In one of the Vasishtha hymns to 
Agni we read : '' From fear of thee the black people 
fled ; they dispersed, leaving behind their goods and 
chattels, when thou, Agni, blazing for the Puru, didst 
destroy their forts." (VII., 6, 3.) And in another 
hymn of the same book (VII., 19), Indra is praised 
for giving the Tritsu the victory over the Yadu- 
Turvasu, for helping Kutsa, the Puru king, in his 
battles, and giving his enemy into his hand. This 
friendship must have lasted after Divodasa's death, 
for one hymn of another book (I., 63. 7), mentions 
jointly the victories of Purukutsa, as he is often 
named, and Sudas, Divodasa's successor: "Thou, 
Indra, didst destroy the seven forts, fighting for 
Purukutsa, O Lord of Lightning ; thou didst throw 
them down, like straw, before Sudas, and help the 
Puru out of their straits." True, some scholars give 
a slightly different reading of this passage, which 
reverses the sense, thus : " Thou didst throw down 
Sudas like straw," and make out Kutsa to have 
gained a victory over, not with, Sudas. Should this 
reading, which has on its side Roth's and Ludwig's 
weighty authority, be confirmed, it will only go to 
show that the great general war, known as " the 
War of the Ten Kings," from the number of the 
tribes which formed the confederacy at whose head 
Purukutsa undoubtedly stood, was preceded by 
private hostilities between the latter and. his former 
allies, the Tritsu. If so, it might be that the tem- 
porary advantage obtained by the Puru prince 



326 VEDIC INDIA. 

encouraged the other malcontents to declare them- 
selves and form a confederacy, — some, like the 
Yadu-Turvasu, from the hope of avenging former 
injuries, others in self-defence, to check the 
too rapid advance of that most enterprising 
of Aryan tribes. The philological point may never 
be positively settled one way or the other ; but the 
doubt, as will be seen, does not materially affect the 
general course of things, which is all that really 
matters to us, students of history. There are a 
great many similar debatable cases, and it is wise 
not to make too much of them — unless one is a 
specialist. 

28. The War of the Ten Kings is told in the col- 
lections that bear the names of both hostile bards — 
the Vishvamitras and the Vasishthas, and the story 
of the campaign and the decisive battle can be easily 
reconstructed out of the detached passages and 
whole hymns which allude to the subject or nar- 
rate the chief incidents of the struggle. The Va- 
sishtha hymns are usually addressed to Indra, by 
later bards, who beseech him to help their people 
" as he once helped Sudas and the Tritsu," and it is 
expressly mentioned in them, as well as in those of the 
rival house, that the name of Indra and also of Va- 
runa was invoked on both sides — they were, in fact, 
entreated to " defeat the foes, wJictJier Aryan or 
Ddsay This is quite a common invocation, and oc- 
curs repeatedly in several books, showing, on one 
hand, that those early conflicts already were in a 
measure internecine ones, between rival Aryan tribes, 
on the other that the Aryan gods were already 



EARLY HISTORY. 327 

adopted by many native nations.' So the Anu, 
originally probably of Kolarian stock, are especially 
mentioned as worshippers of Agni, and we have seen 
the help given by Indra to the Puru repeatedly men- 
tioned. Nor should it be forgotten that ancient 
nations were by no means exclusive in their theology, 
and were quite ready, without in the least betraying 
their allegiance to their own gods, to do honor, inci- 
dentally, to a strange god who had made good his 
claim to respect by the success and prosperity with 
which he rewarded his worshippers. Now Indra had 
become so pre-eminently the ever victorious war-god, 
that he could very well be praised, and even invoked, 
by warlike tribes not of Aryan stock or religion, 

29. The names of both the enemies and the allies 
of the Tritsu and their king Sudas have been pre- 
served for us by the bards of the Rig- Veda. The 
confederacy, consisting of ten powerful tribes, was 
headed by the Puru under their hero the great 

^ " He whom both battle lines call upon in the fray, both adversa- 
ries on this side and on that, — he whom they invoke, standing on 
chariots, — that, O men, is Indra." (II., 12, 8.) 

" . . . The warriors who leagued together against us, whether 
kindred or strange, break their might." (VI., 25, 3.) 

" Thou, O Indra, dost strike both foes, the Aryan and the Dasyu." 
(VI., 33, 3.) 

" They (Indra and Agni) strike the foes, both Aryan and Dasa." 
(VI., 60, 6.) 

" Whatever contemners of the gods, be they Dasa, be they Arya, 
O glorious Indra, do battle against us, give us an easy victory over 
them, thy foes." (X., 38, 3.) 

" Thou (Agni) didst take the goods of mount and plain, and didst 
strike the foes, both Aryas and Dasyus." (X., 69, 6.) 

Etc., etc. 



328 VEDIC INDIA. 

Kutsa, and by the Bharatas who, already converted 
by Vishvamitra, were to become so thoroughly Aryan- 
ized, and to take such a prominent position that, in 
after days, " the Land of the Bharatas " was to be- 
come a synonym for " Aryan India," The names of 
several other famous chieftains are mentioned as 
having perished in the decisive battle. Neither 
were the Tritsu unprovided with allies, and in the 
array of the latter we are startled to find two very 
familiar names — those of the Parthians and the Per- 
sians — Prithu and Parsu, though there is really 
nothing so very wonderful in the fact that chips of 
the two chief Eranian tribes should have, like others, 
wandered south of the Himalaya. A people named 
ViSHANiN, i. e. " followers of Vishnu," is also men- 
tioned, almost certainly Aryan sun-worshippers, 
showing that Vishnuism as a distinctive worship — 
a sect — had its roots in a remoter past than was hith- 
erto suspected.' As though to complete the connec- 
tion, we find in the list of the Tritsu's allies, the 
Vishanin bracketed with the Shiva, which is thought 
to be a name of the TuGRA, one of the oldest abo- 
riginal Dravidian peoples, whom the Aryas had 
specially nicknamed " Sons of the Serpent," and who, 
under the religious designation of Shiva, were very 
probably the originators of the worship of Shiva 
under the form or with the attribute of a snake." 

' Vishnuism is probably originally connected with the transition 
from the oldest calendar of thirteen lunar months to the reformed 
solar year of twelve months, presided over by the twelve Adityas. — 
See Mr. Hewitt's Early History of Northern India. 

* lb., ii., pp. 232, 233 (y. Roy. As. Soc, xxi., new series). In the 
Russian epic cycle there is an evil champion demigod, the constant 



EARL Y HISTOR V. 329 

That all these peoples had even then already become 
much mixed, partly with Aryan elements, is more 
than likely. At all events it takes one's breath away 
to find the three component elements of modern 
Hinduism : Brahmanism, Vishnuism, Shivaism, ar- 
rayed before us in the Rig- Veda in precisely the 
same juxtaposition : Tritsu, Vishanin, Shiva ! 

30. The confederacy had planned the campaign 
well and was sure of success. Nor does the Tritsu 
bard underrate the danger, but plainly states that 
Sudas "was surrounded " and cried' out for help to 
Indra, who cut a way for him through the enemies, 
in consideration of the prayers sent up by his friends, 
the white-robed Vasishtha priests. The confede- 
rates' plan was simply to surprise the Tritsu, whose 
settlement had advanced as far as the Sarasvati, 
while they themselves were drawn up in battle array 
on the northern side of the Purushni (modern Ravi).' 
The two hosts, therefore, were separated by two in- 
tervening rivers — the Vipash (modern Bias) and the 
Shatadru or Shutudri (modern Sutlej). These the 
confederates intended to cross, as we are very ex- 
plicitly informed by a hymn of the Vishvamitra 
collection. As this historical document is also one 
of the few faultless poetical gems in the Rig-Veda, 
we shall try to give an idea of it, as far as a meagre 
prose version can do so. It is most finished in form, 
and — a rare merit in these old songs — consistent 

enemy of the heroes or bogaiyrs, who goes by the name of " Tugarin 
the Serpent." Our folk-lorists have been greatly puzzled to account 
for the name and where it came from : might the key be found here ? 
* Mr. Hewitt draws attention to this river's name as suggestive of 
the Purus' original home having been on its banks. 



330 VEDIC INDIA. 

throughout, without an anticlimax or a digression. 
The form is that of a dialogue between the Rishi 
and the rivers, arranged in couplets of two verses 
each, the one being spoken by the poet, while in the 
other the rivers reply ; the introduction is in the 
narrative form. 

" I. Down from the mountains, in merry race, like two mares let 
loose, or two comely mother-kine at play, Vipash and Shatadru run 
along, carrying their milk-like waters. 

" 2. Spurred on by Indra, like swift charioteers, ye hasten to the 
mighty mass of waters ; with swelling waves ye beautiful ones run 
close to one another. 

" 3. I went down to the most motherly of streams, to Vipash, the 
wide, the fair, — to the two that, like a pair of mother-kine fondling 
their calves, wander along to meet in one broad bosom. 

"4. 'Swelling with sweet waters, travelling along towards the 
god-created bosom, nought can stem our swifc current : what is the 
wish of the bard, that he calls to us rivers ? ' 

"5. Hark to my devout song, and stay your course for a brief rest, 
ye holy ones ; to you rivers calls my heart's loud prayer ; with longing 
I call out to you — I, the son of Kushika. 

"6. ' He whose arm bears the lightning, Indra, broke the way for 
us, killing Vritra, who shut in the waters ; the beauteous Savitar, the 
god, guides us on ; following his lead, we spread our waters wide.' 

"7. This heroic deed be praised for evermore, that Indra did when 
he cut the Serpent in pieces. With his lightning he struck the rob- 
bers ; the waters sped away whither they longed to go. 

" 8. ' Forget never, O bard, this word of thine ; let the latest gen- 
erations hearken to it ; give us a loving word in thy songs, O poet, let 
us not be forgotten of men, and honor shall be paid to thee.' 

" 9. Hear then, sisters, what the poet says : I came to you from far 
with loaded wagons. Now bend ye low, give me an easy ford ; let 
not your waves touch my axle-tree, O Rivers. 



332 VEDIC INDIA, 

" lo. ' We will heed thy word, O Rishi, that cam'st to us from far 
with loaded wagons ; I bend low before thee as a willing slave, as to 
her lord submits the bride.' 

" II. But when the Bharatas' host, animated by Indra and full of 
ardor, has quickly forded thee, then let the current shoot up again 
with arrow's fleetness ; this is the boon I beg of you, ye holy ones. 

" 12. The Bharatas, filled with the ardor of battle, have crossed ; 
the bard did win the rivers' favor. Now swell, now grow rapidly, to 
end the work, and hasten onwards, with well-filled beds." (III., 33.) 

31. The bard in this last verse, with truly poetic 
licence, describes as an accomplished fact that which 
he only wished to happen, but which did not really 
happen. For in reality, the event was exactly re- 
versed : the Tritsu took the initiative and it was they 
who crossed the Vipash and Shatadru (the fording of 
which Indra made easy to Sudas), astonishing the 
enemy by appearing unexpectedly, in battle array, on 
the southern bank of the Purushni. Then there was 
a veritable scramble ; one after another the confed- 
erate tribes with their leaders jumped into the river, 
"thinking, fools that they were, to cross as easily as 
on dry land." The horses and the chariots were badly 
handled by the current, and those who did cross, 
came out on the other side like stampeding cattle 
without a herdsman. Many chiefs were drowned ; 
the slaughter was terrible: over six thousand warriors 
fell "by Indra's might"; the booty "given into 
Sudas' hands " was immense, and the survivors had 
to pay heavy tribute. The Tritsu victory was com- 
plete, and there was nothing to hinder their further 
advance eastward to the Yamuna (Rig- Veda, VII., 
18). The fate of the Puru hero Kutsa is not ex- 



EARLY HISTORY. 333 

pressly mentioned, but there is a curious incidental 
allusion which would almost make us believe that he 
was taken prisoner. In that one verse Kutsa's tribu- 
lations are obscurely hinted at, and the birth of 
Trasadasyu, son of his daughter PuRUKUTsi, 
seems to be considered as a consolation or compensa- 
tion sent him by the gods. 

32. Trasadasyu became a very powerful sovereign, 
the first of Indian princes to bear the highest royal 
title, " king of kings " {saviraj). A solid peace must 
have followed the disastrous battle on the Purushni, 
for Trasadasyu invariably appears as the Aryas' firm 
friend and ally ; his successors, through several gen- 
erations, are frequently mentioned, not only in the 
great epics, but in the Rig-Veda itself. But his 
people gradually changed its name, and became 
known as the Kurus, who take such a prominent 
position in the country as depicted in the great epics. 
This change of the name is explained, as usual, by a 
genealogical fiction : Kuru, we are told, was a great- 
grandson of Kutsa, and was so great a king that his 
entire people was thenceforth named after him. In 
the same manner the Tritsu disappear ; but we are 
expressly told that they continued to acquire lands 
and the Yamuna is — rather abruptly — mentioned in 
connection with them. But if their name disap- 
pears, that of the Vasishthas and their bigoted or- 
thodox school does not, and it turns out, from this 
and other indications, that the land which the Tritsu 
finally occupied, became that stronghold of fanatical 
Brahmanism, caste, and absolute priestly rule, which 
is designated in the most perfect of Brahmanic 



334 



VEDIC INDIA. 



codes, that of Manu, as the Brahma-VARTA, the 
only country in which it is lawful for a really ortho- 
dox Brahman to reside. This is the text : 

"That land, created by the gods, which lies between the two 
divine rivers, Sarasvati and Drishadvati, the sages call Brahmavarta. 

" The custom handed down in regular succession among the castes 
and the mixed races of that country is called the conduct of virtuous 
men. 

" Fro7n a Brahman born hi that country let all men on earth learn 
their several usages. " 

This as distinguished from the entire country be- 
tween the Himalaya and the Vindhya and between 
the eastern and western oceans, which is called 
Aryavarta, and is good to live in, but not pre- 
eminently holy as that small chosen tract. The 
twice-born should strive not to live outside of Arya- 
varta, for the rest of the continent is the country of 
the Mlekkhas (barbarians) where it is lawful for the 
Shudra to reside, but which the twice-born should 
avoid. 




EARLY HISTORY. 335 

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII. 

THE STORY OF THE FLOOD IN INDIA (THE 
MATSYA AVATAR).' 

I. The story of the Flood exists in Hindu litera- 
ture in several versions, always as an incident of 
some more or less bulky work or collection, except 
one, which forms the subject of a short separate 
narrative or Purana — the Matsya {i. e. " Fish ") Pu- 
RANA. It is also given in very abridged form in 
another of the lesser Puranas, the Agni-Purana ; 
but the two fullest and most elaborate versions are 
those in the Bhagavata Purana, one of the most 
important of these writings, consecrated to the 
glorification of Vishnu, and in the great epic itself, 
the Mahabharata, where it occurs among many 
legends told on various occasions by this or that 
learned Brahman, for the entertainment or instruc- 
tion of this or that royal hero. These versions have 
been known to Sanskrit scholars for half a century 
and more, but being found imbedded in such a late, 
and in some cases almost modern body of litera- 
ture, representing Hinduism even more than classi- 
cal Brahmanism, those who had detected the foreign 
ring of the story were naturally led to attribute it to 
late Semitic importation, directly connecting it with 
the Biblical account in Genesis. The surprise was 
therefore great when a version came to light in one 
of the great Brahmanas, the Shatapatha (" Brah- 

' In connection with these pages it is absolutely necessary to read 
over carefully Chapter YII. of the Siorjy of Chaldea, more especially 
the incident of the Deluge, pp. 314-317. 



336 VEDIC INDIA. 

mana of A Hundred Paths "), suddenly removing 
the legend into an age closely bordering on the 
Vedic, in which we find it presented, in a monument 
of distinctly Vedic literature, as an ancient legend 
accounting for the origin of the present human race. 
The point of view was shifted at once in a way 
which necessitated entirely new adaptations, and 
some peculiar details in the later versions, which 
will be seen mutually to complete one another, only 
now won their proper recognition and interpretation. 
2. Professor Max Miiller published the first trans- 
lation of the then newly discovered Shatapatha ver- 
sion.' We here give the latest and most authorita- 
tive one, edited and indorsed by the same veteran 
scholar'' : 

" I. In the morning they brought to Manu water for washing, just 
as now also they are wont to bring water for washing the hands. 
When he was washing himself, a fish came into his hands. 

"2. It spake to him the words : ' Rear me ; I will save thee.' — 
' Wherefrom wilt thou save me ? ' — ' A flood will carry away all these 
creatures ; from that I will save thee.' — ' How am I to rear thee ?' 

"3. It said : ' As long as we are small, there is great destruction 
for us : fish devours fish. Thou wilt first keep me in a jar. When 
I outgrow that, thou wilt dig a pit and keep me in it. When I out- 
grow that, thou wilt take me down to the sea, for then .1 shall be 
beyond destruction.' 

"4. It soon became a large fish. Thereupon it said: ' /« such 
and such a year that flood will come. Thou shalt then attend to me 
and prepare a ship, and when the flood has risen thou shalt enter into 
the ship and I will save thee from it.' 

" 5. After he had reared it in this way, he took it down to the sea. 

^ History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 425 ff. (1859). 
* In the Shatapatha Brahmana, translated by Julius Eggeling ; 
Sacred Books of the East, vol. xii., 1882. 



EARL Y HIS TOR V. 337 

And in the same year which the fish had indicated to him, he at- 
tended to his advice by preparing a ship ; and when the flood had 
risen, he entered into the ship. The fish then swam up to him, and 
to its horn he tied the rope of the ship, and by tliat means he passed 
swiftly up to yonder northern mountain (Himalaya). 

"6. It then said : ' I have saved thee. Fasten the ship to a tree, 
but let not the water cut thee off whilst thou art on the mountain. 
As the water subsides, thou mayest gradually descend.' Accordingly 
he gradually descended, and hence that slope of the northern moun- 
tain is called ' Manu's descent.' The flood then swept away all these 
creatures and Manu alone remained here. 

"7. Being desirous of offspring, he engaged in worshipping and in 
austerities. . . ." 



Manu offered much milk-curds and clarified but- 
ter {^ghee), and in the course of a year, lo ! his 
accumulated prayers and sacrifices took a visible 
body and stood before him in the shape of a beauti- 
ful woman, the divine Ida. He lived with her as 
his wife, and they became the progenitors of a new 
race — "this race of Manu," as the Aryan Hindus 
call themselves. 

3. This oldest and simplest version presents only 
the most general outlines of the familiar story, and 
if it stood alone it would not warrant any very defi- 
nite conclusions. We are not even told who the 
fish was, and can only conjecture that it was a 
divine being or a heavenly messenger. The version 
of the Mahabharata comes next in point of time, it 
is far more complete, and contains some suggestive 
particulars. To begin with, we are not left in doubt 
as to the person of the hero, who is introduced with 
his usual patronymic, which shows him to be the 
brother of Yama, as known to us from other sources. 



338 VEDIC INDIA. 

" There was a great Rishi, Manu, son of Vivasvat . . . (who, 
through a great many years, gave himself up to the practice of the 
most fervid religious austerities. . . .). 

" Once a fish came to him on the banks of the Chirini, and spake : 
' Lord, I am a small fish ; I dread the stronger ones, and from them 
you must save me. For the strong fish devour the weaker ; this has 
been immemorially ordained as our means of subsistence. Deliver 
me from this flood of apprehension, and I will requite the deed.' 

" Hearing this, Manu, filled with compassion, took the fish in his 
hand, and threw him into a jar bright as a moonbeam. In it the 
fish, being excellently well tended, grew ; for Manu treated him like 
a son. After a long time, he became very large and could not be 
contained in the jar. Then, seeing Manu, he said again : ' In order 
that I may thrive, remove me elsewhere.' 

" Manu then took him out of the jar, brought him to a large pond, 
and threw him in. There he continued to grow for very many years. 
Although the pond was two yojanas long and one broad, the lotus- 
eyed fish found in it no room to move ; and again said to Manu : 
' Take me to Ganga, the dear queen of the ocean-monarch ; in her I 
shall dwell.' 

"Manu accordingly took the fish and threw him into the river 
Ganga. There he waxed for some time, when he again said to 
Manu : ' From my great bulk I cannot move in the Ganga ; be 
gracious and remove me quickly to the ocean.' Manu took him out 
of the Ganga and cast him into the sea. 

"When he had been thrown into the ocean, he said to Manu: 
' Great lord, thou hast in every way preserved me : now hear from 
me what thou must do when the time arrives. Soon shall all these 
terrestrial objects, both moving and fixed, be dissolved. The titne 
for the purification of the %vorlds has now arrived. I therefore in- 
form thee what is for thy greatest good. 

" ' The period dreadful for the universe, moving and fixed, has 
come. Make for thyself a strong ship, with a cable attached ; em- 
bark in it with the seven Rishis and stow in it, carefully preserved 
and assorted, all the seeds which have been described of old by Brah- 
mans. When embarked in the ship, look out for me : I shall come 
recognizable by my horn. So shalt thou do. I greet thee and de- 
part. These great waters cannot be crossed over without me. 
Distrust not my word.' — Manu replied: 'I shall do as thou hast 
said.' 



£A RL V HIS TOR V. 3 3C) 

"After taking mutual leave, they departed each on his own way. 
Manu then, as enjoined, taking with him the seeds, floated on the 
billowy ocean in the beautiful ship. He then thought on the fish, 
which, knowing his desire, arrived with all speed, distinguished by a 
horn. When Manu saw the horned leviathan, lofty as a mountain, 
he fastened the ship's cable to the horn. Being thus attached, the 
fish dragged the ship with great rapidity, transporting it across the 
briny ocean, which seemed to dance with its waves and thunder with 
its waters. Tossed by the tempests, the ship whirled like a reeling 
and intoxicated woman. Neither the earth, nor the quarters of the 
world appeared ; there was nothing but air, water, and sky. 

" In the world thus confounded, the seven Rishis, Manu and the 
fish were beheld. So, for very many years, the fish, unwearied, 
drew the ship over the waters, and brought it at length to the highest 
peak of Himavat. He then, smiling gently, said to the Rishis : 
' Bind the ship without delay to this peak.' They did so accord- 
ingly. And that highest peak of Himavat is still known by the name 
of Naubandhana (' the Binding of the Ship '). 

" The friendly fish then said to the Rishis: ' I am the Prajapati 
Brahma, than whom nothing higher can be reached. In the form 
of a fish I have delivered you from this great danger. Manu shall 
create all living beings — gods, asuras, men, with all worlds and all 
things, moving and fixed. By my favor and through severe austere 
fervor, he shall attain perfect insight into his creative work and shall 
not become bewildered.' 

" Having thus spoken, the fish in an instant disappeared. Manu, 
desirous to call creatures into existence, performed a great act 
of austere fervor, and then began visibly to create all living 
things. . . . " 



In this version (not to dwell on its amplification 
and remarkable literary perfection), three important 
features are added, which all greatly enhance its in- 
trinsic connection with the Chaldean and Biblical 
original: ist. The Flood is said to be sent because 
the time has arrived for the purification of the world 
— or for its punishment, as it amounts to the same 



340 



VEDIC INDIA. 



thing ' ; 2d, Manu is not saved alone, but is allowed 
to take a few human beings (not his friends or 
family, but the seven holy sages of Hindu legend) 
and '' the seeds " '^ ; 3d, the mysterious fish reveals 
himself to Manu and his companions as Brahma the 
One Supreme Deity, and speaks to them and bids 
Manu repeople the world ^ ; only, with the bombas- 
tic exaggeration which has grown on the race since 
the time of the comparatively sober Veda, he does 
not limit his command to earth and the human race, 
but orders him to create^ besides men, gods, and 
asuras, and all the worlds. 

4. This exuberant imaginative element is still 
more developed in the version given in the Matsya 
(or Fish) Purana, one important feature of which is 



Chaldean Deluge Tablet, 

* . . . The God Ea spoke to 
me his servant : ' ' Men have re- 
belled against me, and I will do 
judgment against them . . . the 
heavens will rain destruction 
. . . the appointed time has come. 

^ . . . I brought together and 
stowed into the ship . . . the 
seed of life of every kind, my 
family, my men servants and my 
women servants , . . and also 
my nearest friends. . . . 

^ (Hasisadra is not given any 
mission or task, but simply trans- 
lated with his wife into immortal 
life.) See Slo)y of Chaldea, pp. 
314-317. 



Genesis VII. -IX. 

. . . And God looked upon 
the earth, and behold, it was cor- 
rupt. . , . And God said unto 
Noah ... I do bring a flood of 
water upon the earth, . . . and 
everything that is in the earth 
shall die. . . . 

. . . Thou shalt come into the 
ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy 
wife, and thy sons' wives with 
thee. And of every living thing 
of all flesh . . . shalt thou bring 
in the ark ... to keep them 
alive. 

And God blessed Noah and 
his sons, and said unto them, Be 
fruitful, and multiply, and re- 
plenish the earth. 



EARLY HIS TOR Y. 34 1 

that the divine preserver is revealed not as Brahma, 
but Vishnu, a change which could have taken place 
only after the schism which divided Brahmanism 
into several sects. One of these had adopted the 
rather insignificant solar god of the Rig-Veda and 
invested him with supremacy, as the ever watchful 
preserver and savior of all creation. 

The Matsya Purana introduces Manu as "a heroic 
king," the patient son of the Sun, who had attained 
so high a degree of holiness that he abdicated in 
favor of his son (name not given), in order to de- 
vote himself wholly to ascetic practices, which he 
kept up with intense fervor during a million years (!) 
" in a certain region of Malaya " (Malabar). Once, 
as Manu was offering an oblation to the Pitris in 
his hermitage, a small fish fell on his hands along 
with some water. Then follows the incident we are 
already familiar with : the fish is successively trans- 
ferred into a jar, into a large pitcher, into a well, 
into a lake, into the Ganges, and lastly is thrown 
into the ocean. 

" When he filled the entire ocean, Manu said, in terror: 'Thou 
art some god, or thou art Vasudeva. ' How can any one else be like 
this? Reverence be to thee, lord of the world.' Thus addressed, 
the divine Janardana, ' in the form of a fish, replied : ' Thou hast 
well spoken and hast rightly known me. In a short time the earth, 
with its mountains, groves, and forests, shall be submerged in the 
waters. This ship has been constructed by the company of all the 
gods for the preservation of the vast host of living creatures. Em- 
barking in it all living creatures, both those engendered from moist- 
ure and from eggs, as well as the viviparous, and plants, preserve 
them from calamity. "When, driven by the blasts at the end of the 
yuga, the ship is swept along, thou shalt bind it to this horn of mine. 

' Two of Vishnu's " thousand names." 



342 VEDIC INDIA. 

Then, at the close of the dissolution, thou shalt be the Prajapati 
(' lord of creatures,' in this case 'creator') of this world, fixed and 
moving." 

By " all living things " are certainly meant speci- 
mens of each kind, as no ship could have been 
imagined large enough to contain all individual 
living things existing, just as "plants" undoubtedly 
also signifies specimens, or rather the seeds of plants. 
As for human beings, only one holy Rishi is named 
by Vishnu as Manu's companion. On being ques- 
tioned more closely, the god explains that the 
great deluge will be preceded by a universal con- 
flagration which, following on a hundred years of 
drought and famine, shall consume the world so the 
earth shall become as ashes and the sether itself 
shall be scorched with heat. Even the gods and 
the planets shall be destroyed. Of the former only 
Brahma is to be preserved, of the latter the sun and 
moon. The Vedas also are to be saved in the ship. 
An important point on which the story of the 
Matsya Purana differs from the Chaldean original is 
that the great cataclysm is not sent in punishment, 
but occurs as the ending of one yuga or age of the 
world, ushering in the beginning of another, every 
such change of period, in the Brahmanic belief, being 
marked by the destruction and resurrection of the 
universe. The narrative ends rather abruptly : 

" When the time announced by Vasudeva had arrived, the deluge 
took place in that very manner. Then the god appeared in the shape 
of a horned fish ; the serpent Ananta^ came to Manu in the shape 
of a rope. . . . He then attached the ship to the fish's horn by 
the serpent rope, as he stood upon the ship. 

5. This same absence of moral point distinguishes 

' Ananta — " the Endless" ; the symbol of eternity. 



EARLY HISTORY. 343 

the elaborate and dramatic relation in the Bhagavata 
Purana.' There also occurs at the end of one of 
the great ages " an occasional dissolution of the 
universe," during which the world is submerged in 
the ocean. But another and, if possible, greater 
disaster befalls gods and men : the Vedas are stolen 
and carried away by " the strong Hayagriva," a 
demon of the race of the giant Daityas, who are 
forever warring against the gods and marring their 
good works, and it is on discovering this deed that 
Vishnu takes the form of a fish. The human hero 
of the deluge -incident is not Manu, but " a certain 
great royal Rishi," called Satyavrata, the righteous 
King of Dravida, a devoted worshipper of Vishnu, 
given to the usual austere practices, and who, in the 
then following new era, is born again as Manu, son 
of Vivasvat. 

" Once, as in the river Kritamala^a river of the country of Dravida, 
or Malabar), he was offering the oblation of water to the Pitris, a 
fish came with the water in the hollow of his hands." 

Here follows the request for protection, the 
transfer of the growing fish from one receptacle to 
another, and the recognition of him by Manu as 
the disguised god Vishnu. To the enquiry why he 
had assumed this disguise, the god replies : 

" On the seventh day after this the three worlds shall sink beneath 
the ocean of the dissolution.* When the universe is dissolved in that 

' Bhagavata — " the Blessed One " ; one of the most sacred names 
of Vishnu. This Purana is specially devoted to the glorification of 
the god and his various incarnations or Avatars. 

* Compare Genesis vii., 4 : " For yet seven days, and I will cause 
it to rain upon the earth . . . and every living substance that I have 
made will I destroy. ... 10. And it came to pass after seven days 
that the waters of the flood zvere upon the earth. . . ." 



344 VEDIC INDIA. 

ocean, a large ship, sent by me, shall come to thee. Taking with 
thee the plants and various seeds, surrounded by the seven Rishis, 
and attended by all existences, thou shalt embark on the great ship 
and shalt, without alarm, move over the dark ocean. When the ship 
shall be vehemently shaken by the tempestuous wind, fasten it by the 
great serpent to my horn, for I shall be near." 

Everything happens as predicted, and when " the 
dissolution " is over, Vishnu slays Hayagriva and 
recovers the Veda, while " King Satyavrata, master 
of all knowledge, sacred and profane, became, by 
favor of Vishnu, the son of Vivasvat, the Manu of 
this era." 

This is the so-called Matsya-AvatAr, or Fish- 
Incarnation of Vishnu — one of ten disguises assumed 
on different critical occasions by the Preserver, to 
save the world from some great danger, and one of 
which is yet to come, at the end of the present j//^^, 
or era. The Agni-Purana's story, though somewhat 
more concisely told, is so exactly the same, with no 
detail added or altered, as not to require quotation. 

6. The great French Sanskritist, Eugene Burnouf, 
who edited and translated the Bhagavata-Purana, 
was familiar with all these versions, excepting only 
the oldest, that of the Shatapatha-Brahmana, which 
was not known in his time as yet, and he is very 
positive about the kernel of the story having been 
imported from Babylon. His only mistake lies in 
assigning this importation to late historical times, 
while there is so much, both in the subject-matter 
and in sundry particulars, that points to an infinitely 
earlier intercourse, in pre-Aryan times, between the 
kindred people of Dravidian India and archaic or 



'i ,' 



/ 



., /, 



^v 
''^•l.. 



THE MATSYA-AVATAR, OR FIRST INCARNATION OF VISHNU IN THE FORM 
OF A FISH TO RECOVER THE SACRED BOOKS LOST DURING THE DELUGE. 



345 



346 VEDIC INDIA. 

Chaldean Babylon. The identity between Manu's 
divine preserver and Ea, the preserver of Hasisadra, 
is more than accidentally indicated by the fish-dis- 
guise of the former, which is also the symbolic form 
of the latter, as abundantly shown by the monu- 
ments,and even appended to the god's name in one 
of his most momentous incarnations, that of Ea-Han 
(Cannes), the Fish-god, the civilizer of Chaldea.' 
Nor are such details to be overlooked as that the 
Manu of the Indian books, whose righteousness and 
piety make him so exact a counterpart of the 
patriarchs Hasisadra and Noah, is said to be a king 
of Dravida, and is shown performing his devotions 
on the banks of a river of the land of Malabar, for 
they conclusively point to the way by which the 
most notable legend of the old poem of Erech 
travelled into India long before the future Aryan 
lords of the country were heard of. That it should 
have been part of the large mass of native lore in- 
corporated centuries later in the religious literature 
of the then ruling race, was but natural — it certainly 
deserves the honor. 

7. It is scarcely necessary to point out the identity 
of the final incident — the stopping of the ship on a 
high mountain top (" Mountain of the land of Nizir," 
Mount Ararat, Himavat), followed by the dialogue 
between the preserved patriarch and his divine pre- 
server, the sacrifices he offers, and the mission given 
him of repeopling the earth. But it may be not un- 
interesting to recall a bit of modern folk-lore, familiar 
to us from infancy, yet which it might not occur to 

' See Story of Chaldea, pp. 84, 85. 



348 



VEDIC INDIA, 



one person in a hundred to remember in connection 
with the venerable old legend, of which, however, it 
probably is an infinitesimal crumb or chip : the 
North-German tale of the Fisherman and the Little 
Fish, so charmingly told in dialect — as heard from 
the people — by the great . Grimm. The beginning, 
at least, is identical with that of the Manu legend. 
The fisherman catches a small fish, who begs for 
life and freedom, promising to requite the merci- 
ful deed, whereupon the compassionate fisherman 
throws him back into his native sea. The sequel, 
of course, is entirely different : it is a story of human 
greed and ambition, growing with the indulgence, 
and finally punished ; but the divine character of 
the Fish is maintained throughout and most vividly, 
even majestically, brought forth. How many of our 
favorite and most familiar stories, the humble com- 
forters of cottage and nursery, will be found to have 
wandered down to us by such devious and long- 
obliterated roads ! 




CHAPTER IX. 

THE RIG-VEDA : EARLY CULTURE. 

1. No one who has read at all attentively the 
many Rig-Veda hymns and passages quoted in the 
preceding chapters but will have formed a more or 
less distinct picture of the civilization and culture of 
those earl}' times, of the intellectual and moral at- 
tainments of those who could think and sing thus. 
Out of things said or implied, mentioned directly or 
in the form of similes, the picture, stroke by stroke, 
must have grown into a goodly general sketch, con- 
juring up before us much the same phases of exist- 
ence as now go to make up human life : same in 
substance, different in garb ; same in kind, different 
in degree. Princes and warriors and priests, — battles 
and rural peace, — things of the farm, the field, and 
the forest, and the various crafts of men, — all con- 
tribute their quota to that sketch. We must now 
attempt to fill it in with more life-like details, more 
finished lights and shades — still from the same ex- 
haustless mine, the Aryan book of books — the Rig- 
Veda. 

2. Philosophers of a gloomy turn have often said 
that the most important act of life is death, as it is 

349 



350 VEDIC INDIA. 

what we came into the world for. Certain it is that 
one of the first things we want to know about a race 
or nation is — what views it held upon that ever ab- 
sorbing, because ever mysterious, subject, and that 
our judgment of that race or nation greatly depends 
on what we learn of those views and of the honors 
it paid to its dead, its treatment of their remains and 
the ceremonies observed in connection therewith. 
This being the case, we shall not have to be ashamed 
of our early Aryan ancestors. For not many funeral 
rituals can vie in beauty and significance with that 
which we can reconstruct from their sacred books. 
The tenth book of the Rig-Veda contains several 
hymns which could have served no other purpose, 
and though it is avowedly a late book, the ground 
matter of such parts as this must be of necessity 
very ancient, for the conceptions about death and 
future life are always among a race's oldest. From 
the merest perusal of the ao-called funeral hymns, 
we see that the Aryas of the Sapta Sindhavah (and 
of course their later descendants), though they had a 
wholesome love of life and earnestly prayed that 
their dear ones and themselves might be spared to 
the full natural span of " a hundred winters," yet 
had no morbid terror of death, and, while keeping 
the departed in honor and loving remembrance, 
certainly did not mourn as those without hope. 
Their hope was that those who had gone before 
would lead a happy and glorified existence with the 
ancient Fathers of the race and their own ancestors 
down to the immediately preceding generation, hap- 
pily waiting to be joined by their own descendants, 



EARLY CULTURE. 35 I 

" feasting with the gods," in the realm of good King 
Yama. Thither their spirits were conveyed on the 
fiery pinions of the Messenger Agni, whose consum- 
ing touch had power only over the grosser, earth- 
born parts. This is the later form of funeral, which 
has endured among Brahmanic Hindus to this day, 
and the texts which accompany it we have no 
trouble in distinguishing from others, that could 
have fitted only a rite of burial, not of cremation. 
These are contained in the famous hymn X., i8, one 
of the most beautiful of its kind in any time or 
country. It is evident that burial was the earlier 
form. The words are so suggestive of the acts per- 
formed that it is easy to imagine, from them alone, 
the sacred action as it proceeds. The dead is laid 
on the ground, on a consecrated spot. His bow is 
in his hand ; his widow sits by him, near the head. 
Relatives and friends stand in a wide circle. The 
officiating priest places a stone at some distance 
from the body, within the circle ; it is the dividing 
bourne, beyond which the living may not pass, and 
which Mrityu, Death, is invited to respect. As he 
does this the priest speaks : 

" I. Depart, O Death, go thy way — the path which is thine own, 
far removed from that of the gods. To thee I speak, that hast eyes, 
hast ears : harm not our children, not our men." 

Then turning to the assembled mourners: 

"2. Ye who came hither in Death's footsteps, yourselves possessed 
of life, increasing in wealth of treasure and of progeny, be ye in spirit 
pure and holy ! — 3. Divided are the living from the dead. Propitious 
was our sacrifice this day, and we shall hence depart to dance and to 



352 VEDIC INDIA. 

be merry, for still is life our own. — 4. This bourne I set, that of the 
living none may haste to yonder goal ; theirs be the full-prest measure 
of a hundred autumns, and may this rock keep Death away from 
them. — 5. As days on days still follow in succession, and season 
closely follows season, nor comes the later before the earlier, so shape 
their lives, Creator. — 6. Fulfil your term of years, and live to a ripe 
old age, as many as are here, running your race in turn, and may 
Tvashtar, the skilful Maker, give you length of days." 

Only after this blessing on the living has been pro- 
nounced, do the rites really begin. The women 
enter the consecrated precinct and pour oils and 
butter on the corpse, to the following text. 

" 7. These women here, not widows, wives of noble husbands, and 
mothers, let them first approach with unguents and with clarified 
butter ; tearless, not sorrowing, festally attired, let them go up to the 
dwelling (of the dead)." 

Here the brother of the deceased, as his represen- 
tative, or, in default of a brother, an adopted son, a 
pupil, or an old servant, takes the widow by the hand, 
saying : 

"8. Arise, O woman, to the world of life. His breath is gone, by 
whom thou liest, — who took thy hand once and espoused thee ; thy 
wedlock with him now is ended." ' 

Then the same person takes the bow out of the 
lifeless hand, with the words : 

' It is these two verses — 7 and 8 — which have acquired such great 
celebrity and importance, as affording conclusive proof that the Vedas 
do not yield any precedent and authority for widow-burning, but 
quite and expressly the contrary. The sense of verse 7 has been per- 
verted by the change of two letters in one ivord, and some slighter dis- 
crepancies in the interpretation of another word. But those two letters 
really have to answer for the horrors of the suttee. 



EARLY CULTURE. 353 

" 9. His bow I take from the hand of the dead, that it may be to 
us for help, and strength, and fame. Stay thou yonder ; we here, as 
doughty men, will, in battle, smite the foe." 

Now the actual interment begins ; the body is laid 
in the ground, the earth is shovelled over it, and a 
mound erected, the " house of death." As the dif- 
ferent acts are performed, the priest speaks the 
accompanying words : 

10. Hie thee to Earth, the Mother ; to the wide-spread, blessed 
Earth ; to the pious man she is a maiden soft as wool ; may she 
guard thee from evil. — 11. Open wide, O Earth, oppress him not. 
Be gracious unto him ; shelter him kindly, cover him, Earth, even as 
a mother covers her infant with her garment. — 12. Now let the 
house of clay stand firm and steadfast, borne on a thousand pillars ; 
may it ever be sprinkled with clarified butter, and be a shelter unto 
him for aye. — 13. I have heaped up the earth around thee, and may 
this clod not hurt thee as I place it over thee. May the Fathers 
guard this house, and Yama prepare thee a dwelling in the world 
beyond." 

3. The stern and sober spirit of this valediction, 
so healthily remote from idle sentiment and lament, 
yet not loveless withal, and breathing a simple faith, 
unmixed as yet with speculation, would alone point 
to the extreme antiquity of the rite it accompanies. 
When cremation was introduced, it became neces- 
sary to modify the ritual and adapt it to new texts. 
These are all contained in Book X., and are so sug- 
gestive as to require no commentary. Yet the hymn 
X., 18, was too old and sacred ever to be discarded ; 
it was only broken up into parts, some being recited 
during — or before — the cremation, and the others 
from verse 10 on, being reserved for the ceremony 



354 



VEDIC INDIA. 



of collecting and interring the bones. The follow- 
ing is this later ritual as it stands in the Domestic 
Laws (Grihya-Sutras) of Ashvalayana. This code 








31 32 33 34 ^-y 

32. — SACRIFICIAL IMPLEMENTS : PANS, DISHES, SPOONS, BOWLS, CHOP- 
PER, POKER (in the shape OF A HAND), KNIFE, SCRAPER, ETC. 



being a portion of the Vedic literature, and the 
funeral ritual it prescribes so exactly adapted to the 
texts in the Rig-Veda, we can hardly doubt its hav- 



EARLY CULTURE. 



355 



ing been in use already among the late Vedic Aryas, 
at all events when they had reached the valleys of 
the Ganga and Yamuna, where the transition from 
purely Vedic to Brahmanic culture must have been 
finally elaborated. 





36 37 S3 S9 40 41, 

33. — MORE DISHES : BOWLS, SPOONS, LADLE FOR THE GHEE (mELTED 
butter), sacrificial grass, kindling wood, burning WOOD, ETC. 



4. After a spot, at a distance from dwellings, has 
been selected, in accordance with certain strictly 
prescribed requirements, the relatives of the dead 
man carry thither his sacred fires and the sacrificial 
implements he used in life, leading an animal — usu- 



356 VEDIC INDIA. 

ally a black goat. When the procession arrives at 
the chosen spot, the priests walk round it thrice 
from right to left, sprinkling it with holy water and 
repeating the verse which drives away evil spirits : 

" Go hence ; withdraw; depart from here. The Pitris (Fathers) 
have already prepared for him a place of bliss. Yama holds ready 
for him an abode of rest, where blessings flow as rivers night and 
day." (X., 14, 9.) 

The three fires are then disposed and fuel is piled 
up between them. A black antelope's skin is spread 
out upon the pyre and strewn with sacrificial grass 
{kushd). Upon this the body is laid out and the 
widow takes her seat by the head. The rite begins 
with her being helped down from the pyre (with 
verse 8 of X., 18), and with the taking of the bow 
(with verse 9 of the same). A strange ceremony 
now follows ; the sacrificial implements — which, un- 
like the bow, are the dead man's inalienable prop- 
erty, almost a part of himself, that cannot be taken 
from him even in death — are disposed on the differ- 
ent parts of his body in a strictly prescribed order ; 
such an implement on his chest, such another on his 
head, some in his hands, others on his face, his sides, 
his thighs, etc., until none are left, when those that 
are hollow (ladles, dishes, spoons, etc.), are filled 
with melted butter. The goat, meanwhile, has been 
slain and flayed, and is stretched on the body, so as 
to fit it exactly, limb for limb, as a protection from 
the flames ; the whole is then covered with the hide. 
One of the texts recited in the course of this tedious 
operation is verse 10 of X., 14 : 



EARLY CULTURE. 357 

" Go thy straight way, past the two dogs, the sons of Sarama, the 
spotted and four-eyed ; go where the Fathers, lavish of gifts, live in 
joy with Yama." 

After several oblations have been offered on the 
body itself, the priest gives the word : " Light the 
fires together ! " Omens are drawn for the future 
state of the deceased from the greater or lesser 
rapidity with which the fires reach the pyre and 
the body ; nor is it a matter of indifference which 
fire reaches it first. If all three touch the body at 
the same time, this is said to portend the highest 
luck. While the process of cremation is actually 
going on, the priest recites numerous hymns, or 
parts of hymns — the appropriate verses only, most of 
them very beautiful. The following (X., 14) is one 
of the finest : 

" I. Him who crossed the great mountains and spied out the road 
for many. King Yama Vaivasvata, the gatherer of men, honor with 
an oblation. Yama was the first who found the way to that home 
which cannot be taken from us. Those who are now born go by 
their own paths to the place whither our ancient fathers have de- 
parted. ..." {The deceased is addressed) : " Go forth, follow the 
ancient paths on which our Fathers went. The two kings shalt thou 
behold, Varuna and Yama, where they revel in bliss. There join Yama 
and the Fathers, where every wish is granted in the highest heaven ; 
free from blemishes enter thy home there, with a new and shining 
body clothing thyself. . . . {To Yama) : Let the two dogs, thy 
watchers, the four-eyed, the guardians of the road, protect this man ; 
make him prosperous, deliver him from suffering and disease. Yama's 
two messengers, brown, broad of nostril, and insatiable, wander about 
among men, taking away their lives : may they long let us behold the 
sun, and give this man renewed and happy life." 

Agni is then prayed to deal gently with his charge 
(X., 16) : 



358 VEDIC INDIA. 

" Scorch him not, consume him not, O Agni ; rend not his skin 
or his limbs. When thou hast matured him, convey him to the 
Fathers. ..." {The deceased is addressed^ : " Let thine eye go to 
the sun " (Siirya), thy breath to the wind (Vayu) ; to earth or to the sky 
go with thy several parts, into the waters or into the plants, as best be- 
seems. The goat is thine, O Agni ; her kindle with thy heat, con- 
sume with thy flames. But this man's unborn part convey, assuming 
thy most auspicious forms, to the abode of the righteous. . . ." 

The tinhorn part ! Was ever the very essence of 
" the soul " more fehcitously expressed ? — A special 
guide is provided, in the person of Pushan, the pro- 
tector of wayfarers. (X., 17.) 

" May Pushan guide thee hence, the wise, the universal shepherd. 
. . . Pushan knows all the abodes ; he guides us safely, care- 
fully. . . . Pushan is born on both the paths, that of heaven and 
that of earth, and goes back and forth between both, knowing the 
way to the happiest abodes." ' 

" He who is burnt by one who knows all this goes 
to the heaven-world {svarga-lokd) with the smoke. 
This is certain." Thus the author of the Sutra, set- 
ting the seal of comforting assurance on the direc- 
tions just given for the performance of one of the 
most solemn and sacred of rites. 

5. Before the body is quite consumed, the officiat- 
ing priest recites verse 3 of X., 18 (see above), where- 
upon all leave the place without turning to lookback. 

' The context of this makes plain the highest (mystical) meaning of 
Pushan's title " Lord of the Path," the naturalistic meaning of which 
presents little difficulty. (See pp. 235, 236.) The "path," the 
" road," which he is asked to " lay out," is that from this world to 
the other; the "wayfarers," whose guide and protector he is, are 
the dead, on their way to " the happiest abodes." He shares with 
Agni the office of Psychoponipos. 



EARLY CULTURE. 359 

On their way they bathe in pure water and, after 
donning clean clothes, sit where they are till 
night descends, when they go home and re-enter 
their dwellings as the stars appear, or while part of 
the sun-disk is still visible. The relatives of the dead 
lead a quiet and secluded life until the half consumed 
bones are collected and interred. This ceremony 
takes place about ten days later, on a certain, pre- 
scribed, auspicious day ; it is followed by that of 
heaping up the earth and placing a tombstone on 
the spot; the verses 10-13 of X., 18, are recited as 
the different acts are performed. On returning 
home, after bathing, the relatives perform the first 
shraddhd — rite with oblations to the deceased, who 
is now formally placed among the Pitris and entitled 
to the honors and worship which belong to that 
reverend company.* 

6. The question so often asked, " Did the Vedic 
Aryas believe in a future life ? " becomes idle 
indeed in view of all this. But when we would 
inquire more particularly into their conception of 
the forms which that life was to assume, we find 
nothing definite. We are at first inclined to feel dis- 
appointed, but soon arrive to a perception that in this 
reticence lie a great beauty and charm. The hope, 
the faith, are very firm and definite. Death, though 
named " the Ender," ends only what had a beginning 
here, in this lower world. There is in man a part 
that was " not born " and therefore cannot die. That 

* " The proper meaning of shraddhd is " faith." A rite performed 
in honor of the departed is an act of faith, for it is believed that it 
will be mutually beneficial. 



360 VEDIC INDIA. 

part, freed by the purifying flames from the earthly 
dross that clings to it, is " restored " to its home to 
lead a happy and immortal life, reunited to the 
friends that have " gone before." That is all. What 
is this life ? What are its conditions, its occupa- 
tions ? Vague imaginings only give answer. The 
blessed dead are admitted to contemplate the glory of 
" the two Kings," Varuna and Yama, where they sit 
under (or on ? ) " the tree of beautiful foliage, feasting 
and drinking," (X., 135) (soma of course) — aye, and to 
share in the feast, for are not the Fathers called " the 
soma-loving " ? an accepted manner of speech, to say 
that they (like the Ribhus) have received the gift of 
immortality. But all this is vague ; the one belief 
of a materialistic character which is positively ex- 
pressed and insisted on is that in a resurrection in 
the flesh, even while the body is supposed to be dis- 
integrated and resolved into its elementary compo- 
nent parts. In the same breath with which the 
priest addresses the departed, saying, " Let thine 
eye go to the sun," etc., he also bids him enter his 
heavenly home " clothed in a new and shining body," 
" free from blemishes," and immediately goes on : 

" Give up again, Agni, to the Fathers, him who comes offered to 
thee with oblations . . . let Jiiin meet his body. Whatever part 
of thee any blackbird, or ant, or serpent, or beast of prey has bitten, 
may Agni heal all that, and Soma, who has entered into the 
Brahmans." 

One thing appears certain : that the " new body " 
with which the departed was to " clothe himself," 
must have been imagined as a glorified, probably an 



EARLY CULTURE. 36 1 

unsubstantial one. Was this a foreshadowing of the 
" astral body " of modern esoterism ? Why not ? 
Almost everything in India can be traced to the 
Veda. The most definite impression we receive, how- 
ever, is that of a floating, a hovering, in infinite 
space, in a flood, a sea of light. This impression is 
given and renewed by a number of passages all 
through the Rig : 

" Surya follows Ushas, the radiant, as a lover foUows a maiden, 
where the god-fearing live from age to age and go from bliss to 
bliss." (I., 115.) 

" In the midmost heaven, they lead a life of bliss." (X., 15.) 
"O might I enter Vishnu's blessed abode, where the god-fearing 
dwell in joy ; for they are the friendly host of the mighty strider, 
and the source of sweetness is in Vishnu's highest place . . . 
resplendent with light is the supernal abode." (I., 154.) 

And that most beautiful song of longing, of hope, 
of adoration, IX., 1 1 3 (" Where there is eternal light," 
etc. — see p. 180), is all bathed in and pervaded with 
the light that never was on land or sea. 

7. So much for " the god-fearing." And what of 
the others ? Was there a hereafter for them, and 
how did the Aryas of early Vedic times picture it ? 
If they did, it was in even more indefinite and misty 
guise. In conformity with Aryan dualism, if the 
good live in eternal light, the wicked must be con- 
signed to darkness everlasting, and that is about all. 
Varuna and the other Adityas especially are the 
avengers of wrong, as we have seen, and they cast 
the unrepentant into a " pit," which is as greatly 
dreaded as their famous " nooses" or " fetters "— 
darkness, disease, and death. 



362 VEDIC INDIA. 

" The keeper of Rita is not to be deceived. Full of wisdom, he 
surveys all beings. Those that are displeasing to him, the tingodly, 
he casts down into " the pit. . . ." (II., 26, 8.) 

" Remove your nooses, O gods [tlae Adityas] ; remove my sin ; 
seize me not as a bird in the nest. Be with us this day, O worship- 
ful ones ; I will tremblingly nestle against your heart ; protect us, 
ye gods, from the devouring wolf and from falling into the pit." 
(II., 29, 6.) 

" Indra holds no kinship with those who press no soma; he is 
neither friend nor brother to them ; he casts the unfriendly into the 
depths." (IV., 25, 6.) 

" Cast down our enemies into the nethermost darkness," a Rishi 
prays to Indra. 

8. It was Hot uanecessary to dwell thus long on 
the vagueness, the indefiniteness — we might say the 
spirituality — of the Aryan conception of a future 
life as we find it expressed in the Rig-Veda, because 
it differs so exceedingly from what we are familiar 
with in later, Brahmanic, times. And the change 
soon comes. In the Atharva-Veda already we are 
confronted by a thoroughly materialistic paradise 
and hell. We are informed exactly of the pleasures 
which wait on the blessed dead, and the torments 
which the wicked dead suffer. The few delicate 
touches, which show us the Fathers " revelling in 
bliss " with Yama and Varuna under " the tree of 
beautiful foliage," which is the sky with its stars, are 
spread and flattened out into a broad description of 
prosaic delights : every pious inmate is approached 
by beautiful, luminous, gentle cows, who never kick 
and are always ready to be milked ; mild breezes and 
soft showers cool the air ; there are ponds of clari- 
fied butter, streams of honey, and rivers of milk and 
curds. No one is rich or poor, powerful or oppressed. 



EARLY CULTURE. 363 

The beautiful verse of IX., 113 — "Where there is 
happiness and dehght, where joy and pleasure reside, 
where the desires of our desire are attained " — is in- 
terpreted in the sense of the most earthly delights, 
— with the assistance of the fascinating Apsaras, the 
Houris of Indian mythology. In short we have be- 
fore us Islam's paradise in its completeness. On the 
other hand the pit of nethermost darkness has become 
a hell — a " hell of hells " ' — where great criminals 
sit in a pool of blood and eat hair for food, while the 
tears of the wronged and the water in which the 
dead are washed are their only drink. Yama, too, 
the luminous, the gentle king of happy spirits, who 
was dreaded and terrible only because Death /jterri- 
rible after all, even at his mildest, changes fast into 
the grim ruler of the various hell-worlds {tdla, ndrakd), 
the ruthless judge and torture-master, tricked out in 
all the cheap horrors of the later popular devil. It 
is not yet so in the Artharva-Veda, to be sure, but 
there already the son of Vivasvat wears a forbidding 
aspect as the impersonation of Death itself — " Yama- 
Mrityu." 

9. There are various kinds of Pitris : the Fathers 
of individual families, those of tribes, and the Fathers 
of the race. It is a general way nations have, this 
of making tutelary spirits of their remote ancestors, 
to whom they then look for aid and protection. 
They generally go the further length of making those 
ancestors god-descended, thus not only keeping up 
the dear and sacred family bond through all ages 
past and to come, but also asserting their own con- 
' Talatala, the original form of the Greek iartaros. 



364 VEDIC INDIA, 

nection with a heavenly home, their own originally- 
divine descent. This is but a way of expressing the 
dimly perceived higher and better self, the conscious- 
ness of the presence in us of a something divine, 
self-acting and independent of our will. Other 
nations have raised to this dignity their ancient 
heroes, the fighters and lawgivers, the founders of 
their states and royal houses. But the Aryas of 
India, true to the early developed sacerdotal bent of 
their race, claimed descent from their ancient sacri- 
ficers and priestly poets (Rishis) — their saints — and, 
through them, kinship with the gods. Thus arose 
the sacred hosts of heaven — the Angiras, singers 
of hymns, the Bhrigus, whose name connects them 
with the sacrificial fire,* and many others, generally 
in troops or groups ; also the numerous single 
saints or holy patriarchs, severally honored as the 
progenitors of sacred priestly families or of the 
human race itself, such as Vasishtha, Vishvamitra, 
Kashyapa, and numbers of others, later ones, not to 
be found in the Rig-Veda. To all these are ascribed 
not only extensive power, together with the con- 
stant desire to interfere in and direct the affairs of 
men, but the highest cosmical functions, even to 
active participation in the work of creation and that 
of preserving the worlds. This we find clearly 
indicated already in the Rig, foreign as it is to 

^ " Bhrigu " comes from a root, Bhrij — " to burn, roast," and must 
have been an old name of " flame," of Lightning itself. It survives 
in Gv&ek phl^go, 'L,2X\r\.flagrare^ fulgere (to blaze, to yfame.j'fare, 
/?ash, be resplendent), with all their derivatives, chief of which is the 
Latin /m/^z^;'," lightning bolt," not to speak of their numerous pos- 
terity in our modern tongues. 



EARLY CULTURE. ' 365 

the exuberant extravagances of later Brahmanism. 
What else but such cosmic work — expressed in 
conventional Vedic phrase — are the Angiras doing, 
when they " help Indra break open the stable and 
let out the cows"? or the Fathers (Pitris generally), 
when they are said to have adorned the black horse 
with pearls (to light the stars in the sky), and to 
have placed darkness in the night and light in 
the day or to have spread out heaven and earth 
in concert with Soma? (VI 1 1., 48, 13), or when 
they are called "warders of the Sun" (X., 154, 5), 
and said to have " brought the great light " ? It 
should be remembered, though, that they do all 
this, not in the naturalistic order of things, but 
through the spiritual power conferred by the fault- 
less performance of rites and sacrifices. It is as. im- 
personations of ritualistically perfect prayer that the 
Angiras " break open the stable," because such 
prayer has compelling force over nature, and brings 
rain, sunlight, keeps the world in place, etc. It is 
as the representatives of this same spiritual power 
that the Pitris have so much to do with ordering or 
producing natural phenomena. Nevertheless the 
path of the Fathers is distinct from that of the gods, 
for it is that of death (see X., 18, i, and 88, 15), by 
which all men are to follow. It is meet therefore 
that the oblations offered to both should also be 
different. So, while the Fathers are soma-lovers and 
soma-drinkers and have a general invitation to come 
and partake of it at sacrifices with the gods, special 
offerings are reserved for them at their own particu- 
lar commemorative festivals — the shraddhds — princi- 



366 VEDIC INDIA. 

pally a kind of wheat cake or dumpling called /m<a?(«, 
one of which is provided for every Pitar invited. ' 
For there were different kinds of sJiraddJids, on differ- 
ent occasions and anniversaries. Some were sacred 
to the memory of one departed relative, some to 
that of the family dead generally, and some to that 
of all the pious and glorified dead — a sort of All 
Saints' Day. The great hymn, X., 15, would seem 
to have been fitted for a solemnity of the latter kind ; 
but the last verse shows it to have been used at 
funerals. Of course that particular verse may have 
been added specially for such occasions and omitted 
at other times. 

" I. Let the Fathers arise, the upper, the lower, and the middle,'' 
the offerers of soma, they the kindly ones, versed in sacrificial lore, 
who have entered spirit-life — let them be gracious to our invoca- 
tions. — 2. We will pay reverence to-day to the Fathers who departed 
in early times, and to those who followed later ; to those who reside 
in the earth's aerial space and those that are vi^ith the races of the 
beautiful dwellings.^ ... 4. Ye Fathers, who sit on the sacri- 
ficial grass, come to us with help ; these oblations we have prepared 
for you : partake of them ; bring us health and blessings unmixed. — 
5. We invite the soma-loving Fathers to partake of the food they 
love, placed for them on the grass ; may they come and hear us, help 
us and bless us. — 6.* . . . Do us no injury, O Fathers, on ac- 
count of any offence which we, after the manner of men, may have 

'Hence the name: pinda-pitriyajna — "cake oblation to the 
Fathers." 

^ The three worlds, the three birthplaces of Agni. 

' This has been understood by some as meaning the races of men, 
while others interpret "the races of gods." More probably the 
latter. 

^ This is approximative. One translator has "intercede for us," 
another "speak graciously to us," etc. But there is no doubt about 
the help and blessing sued for. 



EARLY CULTURE. 367 

committed against you. — 7. Sitting in the lap of the dawns, give 
wealth to the pious mortal, to your sons, O Fathers, grant them 
plenty and prosperity. — 8, May Yama, rejoicing with our ancient 
Fathers, the best, the gracious, who have come to our soma-oblations, 
drink his fill, eager, with the eager Vasishthas. — 9. Come, O Agni, 
with those who are longing and athirst, sitting with the gods, versed 
in sacrifice, praised in hymns by Rishis, with the benevolent Fathers, 
the true, the wise, who dwell in light. — 10. Come, O Agni, with the 
thousands of ancient and later Fathers, eaters and drinkers of obla- 
tions, who are reunited with Indra and the gods, who praise the gods 
in light. — II. — Come hither, ye Fathers that have been tasted by fire 
(cremated). , . , 13. The Fathers who are here, and those who 
are not here ; those we know and those we do not know ; thou, O 
Agni, who knowest all beings {Jdtavedas), knowest how many they 
are. , . . 14. Along with those Fathers who were burned and 
those who were not burned by fire,' and who are gladdened by our 
oblation in the middlemost heaven, — with these, O Self-resplendent, 
convey this body to the spirit-world and shape it according to our 
desire." 

10. If a people's ideas on future life and their 
treatment of their dead yield a good standard by 
which to judge of their spirituality, their ideas on 
domestic life on earth and their treatment of their 
women form an even more decisive test of the degree 
of ethical culture they have attained. Here, again, 
and on the same showing — that of the Rig-Veda, — 
we have no reason to be ashamed of our early Aryan 
ancestors. The direct evidence it affords is scant, if 
we count by pages, being contained almost- entirely 
in the great wedding hymn, X., 85 ; but it is quite 
sufficient to show that the position held by the 
Aryan woman in Vedic Penjab was a most honor- 
able, nay, exalted one, which later influences and 

' In allusion to the two rites of cremation and burial. 



368 VEDIC INDIA. 

developments changed by no means for the better, 
but rather, and very much, for the worse. Nor is 
only the later dire doom of widows meant by this — 
unknown, as we have seen, to the early Aryas, — but 
also, and even chiefly, the woman's home life, as 
wife and mother. She appears to have been on a 
footing of perfect equality with her husband, subject 
absolutely to no one in his house, not even to his 
parents, let alone his brothers and sisters. What is 
more, she was a willing bride ; and, though it was 
customary to make the official demand through 
third persons, it is more than probable that her con- 
sent was made sure of first, and indeed that she was 
frequently awarded the privilege of choosing out of 
rnany suitors. This fine old Aryan custom endured 
far into the classical Brahmanic period, and the epics 
frequently show us noble maidens holding solemn 
levees on such occasions — the so-called Svayamvdras 
— a custom abundantly vouched for by the traditions 
of other nations of Aryan stock — Greeks, Teutons, 
Celts. In her father's house the Aryan maiden en- 
joyed the usual shelter and cherishing, and her 
brothers were her born champions and protectors. 
For we find passages in the Rig-Veda where the 
fate of the brotherless orphan maiden is deplored 
because. she has to look out for a husband herself, 
and those who wrong such a maiden are said to be 
" born for that fathomless place " — the nameless pit 
of darkness into which Varuna casts evildoers. 

II. The sacredness of the marriage tie and the 
marriage rite is impressed on men in truly Vedic 
guise by a description of a marriage in heaven, which 



EARLY CULTURE. 369 

forms the introduction to the wedding hymn. This 
marriage of Surya, the Sun-maiden, with Soma, is 
evidently presented as the prototype of all earthly 
marriages, and as attesting the divine origin of the 
institution. That in this case, as always, their 
heaven was only a reflection of their earth, never 
occurred to the pious performers of the rite, for of 
that no people is ever conscious, — not the masses, 
anyhow. Surya is the daughter of Savitar, who 
gives her, "consenting in her heart," to Soma. The 
Ashvins are the bridegroom's best men (who made 
the demand), and Agni is the bride's escort (who 
rides before her and brings her to her husband). 
The naturalistic interpretation of the myth presents 
"no great difficulty. The Sun-maiden (only another 
form of the Dawn), can very well wed with Soma in 
any of his capacities. Perhaps, though, his sacer- 
dotal aspect, as king of sacrifice, is the most appro- 
priate, not merely because of the Dawn's connection 
with holy rites, but chiefly because the development 
of the simple myth-nucleus shows Surya to have 
undergone the same spiritually ritualistic transforma- 
tion as so many originally naturalistic myth-persons, 
into an impersonation of Prayer. The enumeration 
of her bridal paraphernalia is wholly symbolical : 
" Beautiful in sooth were Surya's bridal robes " : 
they were made of different sacred metres. Heaven 
and earth were the frame of her chariot, that chariot 
itself "her heart's thought," hymns were the beams 
that supported it, "the two ears" the wheels, 
"knowledge" was her cushion, " seership " her jew- 
elry; sacred songs were the diadem on h r brow and 
24 



370 VEDIC INDIA. 

ornaments in her hair ; the Rig and the Saman 
were the steers who drew her chariot "along the 
easy path of heaven." We have here all the pomp 
and circumstance of Vedic sacrifice, and the sym- 
bolical description ends with this remarkable verse : 
" Two wheels of thy chariot, O Surya, the Brahmans 
know, according to truth ; but the third, the hidden 
one, is known only to the deep-inquiring." The 
allusion is here to " the two worlds," visible and 
known to all, and to that third world, mysterious, 
invisible, which is the very sanctuary where the 
origin of things (of the gods) is forever hidden from 
mortal sight, and towards which the searching 
thought of the seers is ever drawn. Yet in the face of 
all this, the popular impression seems to have been 
that the marriage of Surya and Soma is that of the Sun 
(feminine, as in Germany) and the Moon. Two verses 
(i8 and 19) of the hymn admit of no other interpre- 
tation : " These two children wander one after the 
other by their wonderful power ; they go dancing 
round the place of sacrifice.' The one beholds all 
existing things ; the other, ordaining the times, is 
born again and again." The harmonious cooperation 
of the two rulers of the heavens is presented as the 
model of an harmonious wedded life. 

12. The rest of the hymn is really a collection of 
wedding formulas and sayings, loosely strung to- 
gether, unlike the great funeral hymn, X., 18, which 
presents such a beautifully sequenced, harmonious 
whole. But the action is as clearly discernible 

' " Through aerial space " says Zimmer. 



EARLY CULTURE. ^yi 

through the accompanying text. So we can easily 
imagine the bride's parents giving her their final bless- 
ing and formally releasing her from her duty to her 
own home and family, to transfer it to the new, as 
they recite these verses : 

"Straight and thornless be the path by which our friends go to 
their wedding. May Aryaman and Bhaga conduct us all ; easy to 
manage be the household. ... I release thee /lere, but not i/iere. 
There I bind thee with auspicious bonds, that these twain, O gracious 
Indra, may be rich in sons and rich in substance. — May Piishan lead 
thee hence, taking thee by the hand ; may the two Ashvins drive thee 
on their chariot. Hie thee to the house which thou art to rule." 

Some blessings follow the bride on her way, one 
of which is a most remarkable and direct assumption 
of " heredity " as a lurking danger : 

" T/ie diseases ivhich follow the brilliant bridal procession from her 
01V71 clan, let the venerable gods drive the?n back to zvhence they came. 
Let not waylayers molest the wedded couple ; may they pass safely 
through all dangers on well laid out paths ; may all fly far away who 
bring evil. — Beautifully is the bride adorned ; come, all — contemplate 
her ; then, after wishing her happiness, depart to your homes." 

The actual marriage rite consisted in the bride- 
groom's taking the bride's right hand and leading 
her three times around the household fire, from left 
to right, and in the sacred formula he recited in so 
doing: 

" By thy right hand for happiness I take thee, that thou mayest 
reach old age with me, thy husband. Aryaman, Bhaga, Savitar, 
Puramdhi (?), gave thee to me, to rule our house together." 

" To thee, O Agni, was Silrya first presented with her wedding 
escort ; so now give thou this bride to her husband, and offspring 
besides." 



372 VEDIC INDIA. 

It is not clear who recites this last verse. Scarcely 
the husband. At her arrival at her new home the 
bride is welcomed with these verses : 

" Here may delight be thine through wealth and progeny. Give 
this house thy watchful care. Live with thy husband, and in old age 
may you still rule your household. 

" Here now remain, nor ever part ; enjoy the full measure of your 
years ; with sons and grandsons sporting, be glad in heart within your 
house." 

It is the husband who pronounces the final bene- 
diction. These verses are the most important and 
significant, as determining the position of the future 
housewife : 

"Children and children's children may Prajapati give us; may 
Aryaman bless us with wealth unto old age. Enter, not evil-bring- 
ing, thy husband's homestead. Within the home may man and beast 
increase and thrive.' Free from the evil eye, not lacking wedded 
love, bring good luck even to the beasts ; gentle of mind, bright 
of countenance, bearing heroes, honoring the gods, dispensing joy.'^ 
. . . This bride, O gracious Indra, make rich in sons and in happi- 
ness. Grant her ten children, and spare her husband as the eleventh. 
— Rule then and govern over thy husband's father and mother, over his 
sisters and his brothers. — May all the gods unite our hearts. . . ." 

How absolute the wife's and mother's supremacy, 
as here proclaimed and consecrated by the husband ! 
And what a terrible falling off from this high stand- 
ard is presented by the condition of women, as 
modified in later Brahmanism, and especially Hin- 
duism, by all sorts of foreign deteriorating influences 

' The text has " the two-footed and the four-footed." 
* Might not the passage in italics be labelled for all times, " The 
Whole Duty of Wonian " ? 



EARLY CULTURE. 373 

and of speculative lucubrations, the condition which 
endures to this day and makes of the bulk of Hindu 
women one of the most deeply oppressed, pitiable 
fractions of humanity. Even the popular life of 
modern nations — especially the Slavs and Germans, 
where the son's bride enters her husband's family in 
an avowedly subordinate capacity, and becomes 
almost the bond slave of his parents, his sisters' 
servant and scapegoat — falls far short of the ideal of 
domestic life set up by our so-called " barbarous " 
early ancestors. That such an ideal implies mon- 
ogamy is self-evident. ' 

13. Of course the entire marriage ritual did not 
consist of only hymn X., 85, any more than the 
entire funeral service consisted of hymn X., 18. 
Both are completed and supplemented by verses 
from other hymns, from the Rig-Veda and the Athar- 
va-Veda, the latter being little more than amplifi- 
cations of the Rig texts, and mostly lacking their 
concise directness, their simplicity. On the subject 
of love and marriage customs much more may be 
gathered from scattered passages, mostly illustrative 
similes and illusions — as when a poet says to Indra 
and Agni, inciting them to liberality, " I have heard 
that ye are more lavish in gifts than a son-in-law or 
a bride's brother," and others. Some spells, too — 

* The texts which have been adduced as evidences of polygamy 
prove at most the existence of harem-life, not that of polygamy as a 
legal institution, under which several or many wives have equal con- 
jugal rights. Besides, it is always the rich and the powerful who are 
alluded to in such passages — and these have at all times allowed 
themselves (and been able to afford) exceptional latitude in their 
domestic arrangements. 



374 VEDIC INDIA, 

of very rare occurrence in the Rig- Veda, — are pre- 
served ; one by which a girl lays the household 
asleep — from her old grandfather to the watchdog — 
in expectation of her lover's visit ; one for the 
defeat and destruction of a rival. The Atharvan 
abounds in such passages and incantations, but our 
object at present is to reconstruct Aryan life in its 
more unalloyed form, as presented on the internal 
evidence of the purer Rig. 

14. There are a few so-called hymns which are 
really nothing but short poems, descriptive of this 
or that particular feature of contemporary life, good 
or evil — what the Germans would call Ctilturbilder , — 
and have nothing to do with religion ; and if they 
have been incorporated in the collection, contrary 
to the rule that every hymn shall be addressed to 
some god or gods, it must have been because their 
great literary merit and cultural importance was 
early recognized, and the framers of the sacred 
canon saw no better way of preserving them. Some 
of them greatly confirm us in the impression that the 
Aryan moral code, as mirrored in the Rig-Veda, 
bore, on the whole, a singularly pure and elevated 
character. So nothing can be more nobly beauti- 
ful, in feeling and wording, than the following, on 
almsgiving, or rather on the duty of giving, of help- 
ing, generally (X., 117) : 

" I. The gods have not ordained hunger to be our destruction. 
Even those who are full-fed are overtaken by various forms of death. 
He who gives, becomes not poorer for it, but the miser finds no com- 
fort. — 2, He who, himself well provided, repulses the poor man, 
whom he knew in better times, when he asks for food and drink, 



EARLY CULTURE. 375 

such a man also finds no comforter.' — 3. He is the bountiful man 
who gives to the lean beggar who comes to him craving food. Suc- 
cess attends that man in the sacrifice and he secures for himself a 
friend in the future.^ — 4. That is no friend who will not share with a 
friend who comes to him seeking for sustenance. Let every one de- 
part from such a man — his house is no place to stay at — and seek for 
some one else, who is liberal, though he be a stranger.^5. Let them 
who can do so, help those in need ; let them look dowii the long path 
(of futurity) : for oh, riches revolve like the wheels of a chariot ; they 
come now to one, now to anotlier.^ — 6. In vain the fool obtains food : 
I tell the truth, — it becomes his destruction. No friend will be his, 
nor companion ; he who has his food to himself has his sin to him- 
self." 

15. The leading vices of the Aryan race have 
always been drinking and gambling. The Rig-Veda 
bears ample witness to both. The materialistic sym- 
bolism of the Soma-worship greatly helped to con- 
firm, almost inculcate, the former, by the stress it 
laid on the supposed divine (fiery) element in the 
sacred intoxicant.* Gambling — in the form of dice 
— is also frequently alluded to.^ But we would 
scarcely expect, at so early a date, a portrayal of a 
gambler's career, so modern, we may say, so alive 
with actuality, as that given in the so-called hymn 

' Roth's translation is followed in this verse. 

^ Muir's rendering. Grassmann has : " He meets the same treat- 
ment when he asks for assistance," and Roth : " He willingly meets 
the cry for help." 

^ We must remember that the wheel simile was probably not trite 
three thousand years ago. And yet — it may have been even then : it 
is used so glibly ! and occurs repeatedly. 

* We have seen that against the abuse thus fostered an important 
part of Zarathushtra's reform was directed. — See Story of Media. 

etc., p. 118 y. 

^ See hymn to Varuna, p. 223 ; to Ushas, L, 92, 10, p. 223. 



3/6 VEDIC INDIA. 

X., 34. It is the gambler who speaks in his own 
person, and no habitue of Monte Carlo could lay 
bare more remorseful and helpless self-condemnation 
in the ruthless grip of the enthralling passion, or 
depict more graphically its disastrous effects on 
home and family. 

" I, The tumbling, exciting dice delight me as they roll on the 
board ; they are to me like a draught of the soma-plant growing on 
Mount Miijavant. — 2. My wife never quarrelled with me or irritated 
me. She was kind to me and to my friends. But I, for the sake of 
the hazardous dice, have spurned my devoted spouse. — 3. My 
mother-in-law detests me ; my wife rejects me ; the gambler finds no 
comforter. Nor can I see what a gambler is good for, any more 
than a valuable horse worn out with age. — 4. Others pay court to the 
wife of the man whose wealth is coveted by the impetuous dice. 
Father, mother, brothers, cry out : ' Who is the man ? Take him 
away bound ! ' ' — 5. Resolve as I may, ' I will play no more, for all 
my friends desert me,' the moment I hear the rattle of the brown 
ones [dice], I hasten to the tryst, as a woman to her lover. — 6. The 
gambler goes to the assembly [of gamblers] full of confidence : ' to- 
day I win.* But the dice inflame his desire by making over his 
winnings to his opponent. — 7. They are like fish-hooks that pierce 
the flesh ; deceivers, that burn and torture. After a brief run of 
luck, they ruin the winner ; yet are they to the gambler sweet as 
honey. — 8. Their troop of fifty-three [in allusion probably to the 
points] disports itself after rules as fixed as Savitar's ordinances. 
They bow not to the wrath even of the fiercest — the king himself 
makes obeisance to them. — 9. They roll downward ; they bound up- 
ward ; — having no hands, they overcome those who have. These 
celestial coals, when thrown on the dice-board, scorch the heart, 
though cold themselves. — 10. Forsaken mourns the gamester's wife, 
the mother for the son who roams she knows not where. It vexes 
him to see his own wife and then to observe the wives and happy 

' He probably having staked his own liberty and lost — the depth 
of disgrace. 



EARLY CULTURE. 377 

homes of others. — ii. In debt, anxious, eager for money, he goes to 
other people's house at night.^ In the morning he yokes the brown 
horses [the dice] ; by the time the fire goes out, he breaks down 
miserably. — 12. To him who is the leader of your great host, the 
king of your whole band, I will not begrudge gifts — I swear it with 
outstretched fingers. — 13. ' Let the dice alone ; tend thy farm ; re- 
joice in thy goods and be content. Here, gamester, is thy cattle ; 
here thy wife.' This word spake to me the adorable Savitar. — 14. 
Make peace then and take pity on me, nor entice meany longer with 
your dire witchery, O dice ! Let your wrath, your enmity, abate. 
Let another pine, a bondsman to the brown ones ! " 

16. That the vice of gambling should breed the 
worse vice of cheating at play stands to reason. 
Accordingly we find it mentioned in the Rig-Veda 
with a frequency and familiarity which shows the 
practice to have been a common one, though ac- 
counted very heinous.'^ It even would seem to have 
been a favorite accusation to hurl, out of malice, 
at an enemy, on a par and jointly with that of the 
still more abhorred practice of witchcraft. Such, at 
least, is the suggestion which appears to be offered 
by a very curious passage in the long so-called 
" cursing hymn " of Vasishtha (VII., 104). The 
fanatical, irascible old Rishi was a vigorous and 
comprehensive curser, and, while he was about it, 
anathematizing the foes of his people and of his 
gods, he gave a " raking " to his own personal ene- 
mies, vehemently repudiating certain aspersions on 
his character : 

' To beg, or to steal ? 

2 It is evidently alluded to in the verse quoted on p. 223 (I., 92, 
10) : Ushas cheats men out of their lives, as the " clever gambler" 
his associates out of the stakes. 



37^ VEDIC INDIA, 

" He who attacks me with lying, angry words when I go my ways, 
thinking no evil, let him, O Indra, come to nothing, as water that is 
taken up in the hollow of the hand. , . . If, O Agni, I were a 
cheating gamester, — if I did honor the gods hypocritically ! But 
why art thou wroth with me ? Cast the slanderers into misery. — Let 
me die this day if I ever practised witchcraft, or ever destroyed any 
man's vital power by spells : may he, therefore, lose his friends who 
falsely called me wizard. — Him who said to me, the pure, ' A wizard 
art thou,' who, himself a fiend, boasted ' I am holy' — him may Indra 
slay with his great weapon, may he fall into the nethermost depth." 

17. The first part of this effusion is the most ener- 
getic piece of cursing in the whole Rig-Veda, and 
speaks volumes for the Vedic Aryas' capacity for 
wholesome, whole-hearted hatred of their native foes 
or religious antagonists. Indra and Soma are 
jointly implored to deal with them : 

' ' Indra and Soma, burn the devils, destroy them, throw them 
down, ye two Bulls, the people that grow in darkness ! Hew down 
the madmen, suffocate, kill them ; hurl them away and slay the 
voracious. — Indra and Soma, up together against the cursing demon ! 
May he burn and hiss like an oblation in the fire ! Put your ever- 
lasting hatred upon the villain who hates the Brahman, who eats 
flesh, and whose look is abominable.' — Indra and Soma, hurl the 
evildoer into the pit, even into unfathomable darkness ! May your 
strength be full of wrath to hold out, that not one may come out 
again." ^ 

The third part consists of a string of curses on a 
variety of evil spirits and goblins that lurk in the 
night^some invisible, some in all sorts of uncanny 

' " Brahman " here has the meaning " he who prays rightly," and 
may apply to the priests as a class, not yet as a caste, except as there 
may be said to be " caste feeling," or strong dislike and aloofness, 
on the part of the Aryas against the natives — Dasyus. 

' Max Muller's rendering. 



EARLY CULTURE. 379 

forms — dog, owl, cuckoo, hawk, birds that whirr 
through the darkness, defiling sacrifices — and ends 
with a prayer to Indra, for protection against *' the 
fury of the wizards " and the wiles of witches, and 
for the destruction of both them and " the idols with 
the crooked necks." ' On the whole it seems as 
though Vasishtha and his particular people — /. e., the 
tribe whose /?^r^/^//rt: he was, for whom he prayed 
and sacrificed — were molested and beset in this man- 
ner to an unusual extent. Which may not appear 
strange if we remember that Vasishtha was the un- 
compromising foe of the native races, the fierce 
champion of Aryan exclusiveness, the founder of 
Brahmanic orthodoxy and priestcraft in their more 
offensive forms. It is no wonder that those whose 
enlightenment he opposed, whom he despised, 
abominated, and cursed, should have retaliated in all 
direst ways known to them. (See pp. 320 j^.) 

18. The few instances we find in the Rig-Veda of 
the active use of spells may certainly be classed under 
the head of '' white " — or harmless — magic, since they 
consist almost entirely of the gathering and handling 
of herbs, apparently not even accompanied by con- 
juring — except in the case of a woman, who digs up 
a plant to make a love potion of, for the routing 
of a rival in her husband's affections (X., 145). She 
appears to have been successful, for there is a song 
of triumph and exultation at having got rid of all 
intruders and secured her proper place as sole ruler 
of her household. But the general and approved 

^ Grassmann. 



380 VEDIC INDIA. 

uses of herbs and plants were evidently for healing 
purposes, as shown in the so-called " Song of the 
Physician " — really an herb-healer, who wanders 
about the country with his box of ashvattha-wood. 
The good man makes no secret of the fact that his 
chief object is a livelihood. This charming Cultiir- 
bild abounds in little homely touches which throw 
just the side-lights we are so eager for on the man- 
ners and ways of those otherwise unattainable times. 
The healer begins by formally announcing that he 
will sing the praise of " the herbs, the verdant " 
which are among the oldest of things. 

". . . Hundred-foldareyour ways, thousand-fold your growth, 
endowed with hundred various powers : make me this sick man well. 
Give me victory as to a prize-winning mare. . . . For 
I must have cattle, horses, and clothes, . . . You will be worth 
much to me, if you make my sick man well. He in whose hands 
herbs are gathered as numerous as nobles [or princes, riijans\ in the 
assembly, he is accounted a skilful healer, a tamer of fiends and 
diseases. — The watery, the milky, the nourishing, the strengthening, 
— here they all are together, to heal what is wrong with him. — The 
herbs' fragrance escapes [from the box] as a herd from the stable, to 
earn a good price for me — and thy life for thee, good man. . . . 
No let or hindrance keeps them back ; they are as the thief who 
breaks through fences. . . . When I, O ye simples, grasp you 
sternly in my hands, sickness flees away, as a criminal who fears the 
grip of the law. In your progress from limb to limb, and from 
one articulation to another, ye drive sickness before you, as surely 
as a severe judge's sentence. — Flee then, sickness, flee away — with 
magpies and with hawks ; flee on the pinions of the winds, nay of the 
whirlwinds." * 

19. That our herb-healer was no exception with 
his "eye to business," is most graphically shown by 

' Roth's translation is here followed. 



EARLY CULTURE. 38 1 

the following short and humoristic piece, which, 
besides, is of importance as bearing witness to the 
absence of caste divisions in the thorough confusion 
of pursuits which it describes : 

" We men have all our various fancies and designs. The carpenter 
seeks something that is broken, the doctor a patient, the priest some- 
body who will sacrifice. — The smith, with well-dried wood, with 
anvil and with feather fan, to activate the flame, seeks after a man 
with plenty of gold. — I am a poet, my father is a doctor, my mother 
a grinder of corn. With our different views, seeking for gain, we 
run (after our respective objects) as after cattle." 

20. It is, of course, possible to extract from the 
hymns infinitely more material — mostly fragmentary 
— than we could attempt here for the reconstruction 
of Vedic life. This has been done exhaustively by 
H. Zimmer, in his unique and most valuable work, 
Altindisches Leben, to which we refer the more in- 
quiring of our readers ; with the remark, however, 
that he takes his material from all the four Samhitds, 
and therefore presents probably a somewhat later 
picture of Aryan culture than that which we have, 
in this chapter, striven to evolve almost entirely from 
the Rig-Veda alone. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE RIG-VEDA : SACRIFICE. 

1. It seems at first sight as though a chapter on 
Vedic culture must be wofully incomplete if it does 
not include a picture of the status of the priests in 
the social and moral order of those early Aryan com- 
munities, and a description of their ministrations, 
which may all be comprised under the one head of 
Yajna — Sacrifice. But it is just because of the im- 
mense extent of the subject, and its immense import 
not merely in the actual life, outer and inner, but 
in the evolution of the religious and philosophical 
thought of one of the world's great races, that it can- 
not possibly be disposed of among other matters, but 
imperatively demands — when it cannot have a book 
— a chapter to itself. 

2. The priests who confront us in the Rig-Veda, 
though already forming a distinct class (not caste), 
are simpler in attitude and in organization than their 
successors, the Brahmans. Instead of the large array 
of priests of various rank, specialists in numberless 
details of ritual, there is the priest generally — hotar, 
and the tribal or family priest — puroJdta. That the 
ritual, however, was already complicated and exceed- 

382 



SACRIFICE. 383 

ingly precise, is shown very clearly through all the 
Rig texts. The priests' services were appreciated 
and rewarded accordingly. There is a whole class of 
texts — usually verses appended or interpolated — 
known under the name of ddnastntis. They consist 
of lists of the presents received from wealthy 
chieftains and royal patrons, intermingled with 
praises and blessings, and frequently mention- 
ing the occasion which prompted the largess 
— dakshind is the technical word. Historically 
these are, of course, among the most valuable 
texts, from the glimpses of contemporary life and 
manners which they afford. We meet there, too, 
familiar names — of tribes known to us from the his- 
torical portions ; of famous kings belonging to the 
more powerful dynasties. Thus Divodasa, king of 
the Tritsu, is one of three kings who are named as 
having given a large bounty out of the booty gained 
in a successful expedition against Shambara, the 
mountain chieftain : 10 steeds, 10 baskets full of 
raiment and other articles, 10 lumps of gold, 100 head 
of cattle. Another time Sudas, Divodasa's son, is 
one of the givers. Then it is a king of the Turvasu 
who presents two illustrious priestly families with 
60,000 head of cattle, while a king of the Yadu re- 
wards the Kanvas for a victory over the Parsu (a 
Persian tribe) which is attributed to the efficacy of 
their prayers, with a dakshind of 300 horses, 10,000 
cattle, many double teams of oxen. Again Trasa- 
dasyu, grandson of the powerful Puru king Kutsa, 
sends the Kanvas 50 women slaves. Handsome 
chariots and harness are highly prized ; the horses are 



384 VEDIC INDIA. 

frequently said to be " richly adorned with pearls." ' 
One Kanva priest exults in advance over an ex- 
pected dakshind in cattle, which he has reason to 
think will be so abundant that people will say Vala, 
the cave-demon, has given up his kine. Of course, 
the more generous the givers the higher the praise. 
The Kanvas appear to have come in for more good 
things than any of the others. It is still one of their 
family who boasts of having received from a king 
with the significant name of " Wolf to the Dasyu " 
{Dasyavevrikd), on occasion of a great victory over 
black native tribes, a daksJiind of 100 white cattle as 
shining as the stars of heaven, 100 bamboo reeds, 100 
dogs, 100 tanned hides, lOO mats of a certain grass, 
400 bay mares. A certain king Tchitra must have 
shown unheard of liberality, to judge from the praise 
bestowed on him : " Only Indra gives as much, or 
wealth-dispensing Sarasvati," exclaims the priest 
(again a Kanva) ; '' Tchitra is a real king \i'dja}{\, all 
the others are wretched little kinglets \rdjaka\ tho^e 
that live along the Sarasvati. But he — he is like 
a thundering rain-cloud, and gives a thousand 
myriads." (Of what ? not specified.) 

3. Sometimes approval is expressed in a cool, al- 
most condescending tone : " Not the most carping 
mortal, ye warriors, can find fault with you." But 
when a priest is dissatisfied, he is not slow in ex- 
pressing his displeasure, usually in the form of sneers 
and sarcasm. A Prithu (Parthian) king, who gave 



' This must have been a customary way of ornamenting harness and 
bridles ; hence the simile of the starry night-sky as a black horse 
adorned with pearls. 



SACRIFICE. 385 

:X)nly two horses and twenty cows for a victory, is 
-taunted with being hard to get anything from, while 
anoiher is Hkeried. to a Pani chief, and dismissed with 
the ironical remark : "That is_why our loyal singers 
[priests] have so much to say in praise of Bribu, that 
•most Jiberal of princes. The. maghavans [princes] 
give out of ostentation." This ill-natured remark 
from a Vasishtha sounds like the grim old Rishi him- 
self. But no modern diatribe could surpass in scath- 
ing irony two ddnastutis, evidently composed with 
the intent of securing to the givers immortality of 
the undesirable kind : 

" O friends," the first begins, " get up your enthusiasm : how are 
we to give due praise to Shara, the generous, the liberal giver? — 
Many of the singers [priests] who spread the sacrificial grass will 
praise thee as is meet, O Shara, if thou dost present them with a calf 
apiece, as thou didst us. — The noble son of Shuradeva, the wealthy 
lord, brought us three each a calf, leading it by the ear, as one does a 
goat, that she may stand and let her young nurse her." 

Another is indignant at having received, for some 
elaborate hymns to the Ashvins, of his composing, 
only a chariot without team or harness. He makes 
fun of it, holding the divine Twins responsible for 
his disappointment. 

"From the Ashvins, the rich in horses, I, received a teamless 
chariot ; it pleased me much in sooth. — It will have to push on some- 
how with me to the place where men drink soma, the handsome 
wagon. — Let me have nought to do with dreams or with wealthy 
misers: they are equally unsubstantial." ' 

' For chapter and verse to all this, see Ludwig Rig-Veda, vol. iii., 
pp. 2T2,-'2T], where he gives a list of all the ddnastutis^ which may. 
then be looked up in the hymns. 



386 VEDIC INDIA. 

4. It is evidently of set purpose that these — we 
may well call them mercenary— effusions were incor- 
porated in the sacred samhitdy embalmed in it as 
flies in amber, for the edification of all coming gen- 
erations. They were to inculcate, by precept and 
example, by praise and withering scorn, the para- 
mount duty, not merely of honouring and support- 
ing the priesthood, but lavishing, heaping gifts on 
them. Though, when we read of all these tens and 
sixties of thousands of horses and cattle, these untold 
" myriads " of unknown things, we cannot rid our- 
selves of a suspicion that these wonderful lists were 
sometimes deliberately swelled, the better to enhance 
the priests' merits and claims. There still, however, 
remains enough, even with this margin, to astonish 
and puzzle — the rewards are so out of all proportion 
to what seems to us the simple ministration of con- 
ducting religious services — unless there was more in 
them than meets the eye at first sight. Which, in- 
deed, was the case. For the priests were not thought 
merely to assist and lead the devotions of their 
people, in praying and rendering thanks for happy 
events, such as a victory gained, a successful expe- 
dition, for the prospering of crops and cattle, for 
increase in offspring and wealth. No, these results 
were directly attributed to and thought to depend 
on, the praying {brahmd) of the priests, their text- 
reciting, the sacrificial rites performed by them ; they 
would not have taken place if the priests had not 
done these things or had not done them in the right 
way. This is perfectly illustrated by a very effective 
passage in one of the historical Vasishtha hymns : 



SACRIFICE. 387 

" Irresistibly smiting, O Indra and Varuna, ye stood by Sudas ; ye 
heard the braktna that cried aloud to you : successful was the sacri- 
fice of the Tritsu purohitas. — Both hosts called on you in the battle, 
for victory and booty, when ye helped Sudas and the Tritsu, when 
they were encompassed around by the Ten Kings. — The ten confed- 
erate kings who do not sacrifice could not conquer Sudas. Efficient 
was the prayer of the partakers of the sacrifice [the priestsj, the gods 
came to their sacrifices. — To Sudas, hard pressed in the Battle of the 
Ten Kings, ye gave help, O Indra and Varuna, when the Tritsu, 
white-robed and with braided hair, humbly prayed to you." ' 

Now the " ten kings," as we have seen, were not 
all Dasyu, or wholly Dasyu, and if they invoked the 
Aryan gods in battle, they must have sacrificed to 
them. But they (/. e., their priests for them) must 
have blundered, for sacrifice, when rightly performed, 
compels the result. What bounds, then, should a 
king set to his liberality in gratitude for a victory 
which he owes to his piirohita and assisting priests }^ 

5. This notion of obtaining certain exceptional 
boons through the force of prayer and sacrifice, is 
not as foreign to our mode of thinking as that which 
ascribes to them, as produced by them, the regular 

' Meaning the Tritsu priests, this being the priestly garb. 

^ Not all priests were wealthy, though. We meet here and there 
curiously suggestive plaints like that of a priest who laments that 
rivals crowd him on all sides, till he is ready to faint with want and 
exhaustion and care gnaws him as a mouse gnaws its own tail, " me," 
he adds pathetically, "me, thy singer, O Indra, mighty one!" 
(x. 33, 2-3). We have seen in the satirical song ix. 112, that the 
priest's " seeking for someone who will offer libations" was a social 
fact as universally admitted as that of the carpenter looking for a job 
or the doctor for a patient. (See p. 381.) We may be sure that such 
poor bread-winners did not belong to illustrious and ancient priestly 
families, like those of the Vasishthas, Kanvas, Bhasadvajas, and the 
like. 



388 VEDIC INDIA. 

recurrence of the beneficent phenomena of nature — 
rain and Hght, the alternation of night and day, the 
coming of the dawn and the sun, of the moon and 
the stars. Nor is there anything unlogical in this : 
once it is admitted that the gods do their work in 
response to sacrifice, the converse proposition is by 
no means far-fetched, namely that they will not do it 
unless so solicited. It remains for us to find out 
wherein lay this compelling power of the braJinia 
(ritualistically correct prayer), and the yajna (ritual- 
istically perfect sacrifice). This is equivalent to the 
question : What was the essence and nature of 
Aryan sacrifice ? 

6. Abel Bergaigne, of all Vedic scholars, has 
treated this question most thoroughly, has gone 
deepest and nearest to the root of it. The conclu- 
sions to which his investigations lead him can be 
summed up as follows: Sacrifice is an imitation of 
the chief phenomena of the sky and the atmosphere. 
Now it is a notion as old as the race, that a thing 
ardently wished for may be made to come to pass in 
reality, by performing or reproducing that thing in 
effigy. This strange aberration was one of those 
that died hardest, for we find it very much alive 
down to the later Middle-Ages, in the form of that 
spell of the Black Art which consisted in making a 
wax effigy of an enemy, then melting it over a slow 
fire or sticking a pin into the place where the heart 
should be, in the expectation that the person treated 
thus in Q.'i^^y would waste away with consumption 
or heartbreak. The custom of executing criminals, 
of burning or hanging obnoxious persons in effigy, 



SACRIFICE. 389 

when they are out of reach, is clearly based on the 
same primitive idea. And if efficient for evil, why 
should not the same spell be efficient for good also? 
Sacrifice, looked at from this point of view, would 
be, then, a sort of beneficent conjuring, in accordance 
with the bright and genial Aryan spirit, while the 
dark and lowering Turanian nature revels in spells 
and incantations for malicious, injurious purposes.' 

7. Two things are needful: light and rain — Fire 
and Water — Agni and Soma. They are produced in 
two of the three worlds — the Sky and the Atmos- 
phere. The Devas (powers of nature) are always 
producing them. Agni is always being "found " in 
the waters: as Lightning in the cloud-sea {sanmdrd), 
as the Sun in the golden waters of the sea of light. 
The Cows are always being found and brought back 
to be milked : the cloud-kine with their riain-laden 
udders ; the light-kine with their golden milk — thd 
Dawns and their rays. This is' the gods' allotted 
work, and they do it unremittingly, following " the 
broad path of Rita " (the Law). Only they need 
sustenance, to invigorate them and keep them ever 
living, ever young ; this sustenance they receive by 
partaking of the " drink of immortality " — the ainrita 
— the heavenly Soma which they distil (" press "), 
out of the watery elements somewhere in the highest 
heaven, the hidden world, the Sanctuary of the 
Universe. All this work, this everlasting keeping of 

^ Bergaigne mentions a custom which he waS told of as still exist- 
ing on the Isle of Ceylon, and which consists in placing near a 
growing fruit a pasteboard effigy, of the size which it is desired that 
the real fruit should attain. 



390 VEDIC INDIA. 

the world-machinery going, has an object : to benefit 
the race of men that dwells on earth (of course the 
righteous, well-thinking men, i. e., the Aryas, and 
such of the others as they approve of). It is but 
meet, therefore, that men should try to please the 
gods, keep on good terms with them, — not merely 
out of gratitude, but also because, should they be 
displeased, they might sulk and " strike," and then 
where would this earth and its denizens be ? Thanks 
can be expressed in words and gifts, and the gods 
shall have both, unstinted. Only, the bulk of men 
can feel, but not always express ; are willing to give, 
but do not always know what and how to give, and 
the consequences of giving offence might be serious. 
So men will do wisely to leave these things to their 
poet-priests, as their mouth-pieces and dispensers — 
those superior, mysteriously gifted individuals, 
human, yet more than human " into whom the 
divine Vach has entered " (see p. 270), and who, 
therefore, can commune with the gods without fear 
or dififidence, with ever-flowing, river-like, musical 
speech, who are on intimate terms with those bright, 
beneficent, but awful Powers, understand their na- 
ture, their likes and dislikes, and know exactly what 
offerings must please them, and how to make such 
offering acceptable. But it is no more than human 
nature, in returning thanks for favors received, to 
request the continuance, — if possible, an increase — 
of them. The thanksgiving then becomes a prayer, 
the thank-offering a bribe. The whole transaction 
degenerates into a bargain. The gods are praised 
and entreated, encouraged to do their work and be- 



SACRIFICE. 391 

stow boons, and it is expected they will. For even 
mere mortals — let alone higher beings, noble and 
mighty — would scorn to accept and not give. Here 
again the priests, as specialists in matters of etiquette 
and intercourse between " the two worlds," (which 
are said to be as nearly connected as two neighbor- 
ing villages), are the natural go-betweens and 
masters of ceremonies. These matters are all-im- 
portant, for the very existence of the universe, 
and, therefore, of men, is at stake, and, to at- 
tend to them properly, the priest must devote to 
them all his time, his undivided study, and 
attention. It is only right therefore — on the princi- 
ple of division of labor — that he should be exempted 
from other duties, and only just that he should be sup- 
ported in dignified comfort and remunerated on spe- 
cial occasions, when his ministrations have proved 
particularly and palpably successful. This is the con- 
ception of sacrifice and priesthood we are familiar with 
from our study of the religions of antiquity. But the 
specifically Aryan sacrifice, which has been developed 
by Indian Brahmanism to its uttermost possibilities, 
and endures, to a great extent, to this day, goes a 
step further, the step indicated by Bergaigne. 

8. It is understood that the Devas are beneficent 
and well-disposed, as willing as they are able, to be- 
stow benefits and — what is more important still — to 
"keep the world going." * Still, it were very desir- 

* It may be remarked incidentally, that this is the original and literal 
meaning of " Rita." The root Rl means " to flow," and we find it in 
the Greek rheS and again in our own river. The Supreme Law, 
the Cosmic Order, is the even flow of natural phenomena — the na- 
tural sequence of things ; " Es ist der Lauf der Welt." 



392 VEDIC INDIA. 

able to be able to coerce them— of course by fair 
means — into doing what we want : that would make 
things absolutely safe for men. Here comes in that 
old, old notion — of producing a thing by an imita- 
tion of it. On the " finding" of the heavenly Agni 
and the heavenly Soma, in obedience to the "fixed 
ordinances " of Rita, the preservation, the continu- 
ance of the world hangs as on a hinge. Let Agni 
and Soma, then, be " found" (produced) here on 
earth, strictly according to the " fixed ordinances " of 
sacrificial Law and Order — the rite, the ritual^ 
The sacred act on earth shall be the companion piece 
to that in the sky and the atmosphere ; the counter- 
part shall be as exact as inventive ingenuity, aided 
by poetical imagination, can make it. The terrestrial 
Agni is " found," " hidden " in the plants — the wood 
of the arani, and in the terrestrial Soma, the plant 
that gives the fiery drink which warms and invigor- 
ates, exhilarates and inspires, till men cry out : " We 
have drunk the Soma, we have become immortal, 
we have known the gods " ; in the waters, too, for 
it is in water that the bruised and broken stems are 
laid, to start the fermenting process which evolves 
the fiery element of the beverage. This water is 
the counterpart of the heavenly Waters, the Mothers 
of Agni, and the large kettle or vat into which the 
Soma is pressed is called the sainiidra. The other 
ingredient is milk — the milk of the earthly cow, 
the counterpart of the heavenly and atmospheric 
Kine of Light and Rain. Agni and Soma were 

* Really the same word as " Rita " ; — it is more than an identity 
of roo'w. 



SACRIFICE. 393 

both " brought from afar," the former " from Vivas- 
vat," the latter from " the house of Tvashtar" — i.e., 
from the sky, luminous and frowning ; therefore 
the consecrated spot on which the sacrifice takes 
place, becomes '' the seat of Vivasvat." The vedi, 
(the place spread with sacred kiisha grass), is " the 
seat of the gods." Thunder is the voice, the speech, 
the song of the gods — the divine VAcH. This 
Vach has " entered into the Rishis," and they sent 
her forth as the sacred word — the well-worded prayer, 
the beautifully fashioned hymn. Thunder also is the 
crashing of the grinding stones, and rain the Soma 
that drops through the sieve or the woollen filter 
and flows and runs, noisily, abundantly, into the 
vats — as the rain which drops, and flows from the 
sky, amid thunder and lightning, is Soma, amrita. 
The counterpart is complete. The sacrificial rite — 
the earthly Rita — reaches out and across, as a 
bridge between " the two worlds," till it joins 
and is merged into the heavenly Rita, and both to- 
gether form " the broad and ancient path which 
leads to the one goal " — the path along which Sarama 
took Indra and the singing Angiras,' and another 
" broad path " appears — the broad path of the 
heavenly dakshind—\.\\& rich gifts (light, rain, and 
all the regularly recurring beneficent phenomena) 
with which the " liberality " of the Devas rewards the 
sacrificing of men, as the earthly dakshind is the re- 
ward conferred on the officiating priests by the "lib- 
erality " of their patrons, whether royal or private. 
9. That such compelling power is really ascribed 
' See pp. 256-26 r. 



394 VEDIC INDIA. 

to the ritualistically perfect sacrifice, is proved by 
texts so explicit and numerous, that the only diffi- 
culty is that of selection. Within our limits, two or 
three must do. They do not leave room for much 
doubt. The first is taken from an elaborate rain- 
hymn (X., 98), by a Rishi of the name of Devapi. 
He begins by invoking Brihaspati, the " Lord of 
Prayer," and imploring him to inspire him and 
" place in his mouth " "a strong unfailing hymn, to 
procure rain " for Shantanu, his patron. Brihaspati 
personally responds to the appeal : 

" The honeyed drops shall fall from heaven ; Indra, bring us a 
thousand wagon loads. Devapi, officiate as hotaj- j sacrifice at the 
right time and honor the gods with an oblation." 

Now for the result : 

" The Rishi Devapi, son of Rishtishena, having undertaken the 
office of hota7\ found favor before the gods : he poured the heavenly 
waters from the upper sea down into the lower. The waters were 
detained by the gods in that upper sea ; they flowed down, let loose 
by Devapi. . . . Brihaspati gave the efficient rain-prayer to the 
Rishi." 

In I., 88, the Maruts are entreated to come on their 
"lightning-laden, shining chariots," drawn by steeds 
fleet as birds, and making the earth resound with the 
noise of their wheels. " Through many days " the 
Rishi then says, " the anxious ones repeated this 
prayer addressed to you and plied the rain-compelling 
sacrifice ; by their prayers, by their hymns, the 
Gotamas upset the water-vat, to drink." A bold 
figure, but perfectly intelligible and thoroughly 
Vedic. We find it again, slightly altered and de- 



SACRIFICE. 395 

veloped, in another rain-hymn, X., loi. The vat or 
barrel has become a well : 

" Prepare the buckets, pull the thongs [used as ropes, to lower and 
raise the buckets] ; let us empty the water-abounding, exhaustless 
well ! ^ The well with well-made thongs and buckets, the water- 
abounding, exhaustless, I now am emptying." 

Of course knowledge, great and varied, is required 
to make the prayer and sacrifice efficient.'^ The least 
omission or error would be fatal. For, sacrifice being 
an imitation or reproduction of the celestial drama, 
it must run as smoothly, be as free from blemish. 
A hitch or blunder in the sacrificial rita must pro- 
duce a corresponding disturbance in the heavenly 
Rita or even course of the Cosmic Order, and the 
safety of the universe is endangered. This is what 
is meant by the constant allusions to " knowledge," 
the great value of " knowledge," to " the wise," those 
"who know," by "the right path/' on which the 
gods (especially Agni and Soma, the two " Kings of 
Sacrifice ") are entreated to maintain their worship- 
pers. Hence also the great danger for laymen of 
meddling with such things. It is said : "The igno- 
rant has enquired of him who knows; being instructed 
by him who knows, he acts. And this is the good of 
instruction : he obtains [literally ' finds '] the flow of 

' Slightly contradictory. But Vedic metaphor must not be held 
quite to modern rhetorical standards. 

^ Prayer and sacrifice always go together : yajna and brahnia ; and 
when sacrifice alone is mentioned, prayer is implied. " Sacrifice 
without prayer {abrahmd yajnali) is said not to be pleasing to the 
gods ; even Soma pressed without prayers (abrahmdnd) leaves Indra 
indifferent. (VII., 26, i.) 



396 VEDIC INDIA. 

the rushing ones [the Waters]." ' AH these premises 
being accepted, we shall scarcely be inclined to dis- 
pute the assertion, that only that king rules prosper- 
ously in his own country, obeyed by his subjects, 
and irresistibly wins his enemies' treasures and also 
those of his own people (characteristic, this !), before 
whom walks 2l purohita. 

10. We see now why the ancient Fathers, the 
first sacrificers — i. e., the inventors of sacrifice— r-are 
held in such high honor, rank as nearly, if not quite,, 
the equals of the gods, are credited with so many cos- 
mic functions, — nay, are said to have actively assisted 
in the work of creation itself. (See pp. 364-365). 
Sacrifice was their work of art, the richly patterned 
web, the endless chain or warp, — one end of which 
they hold, in their high place in the abodes of eter- 
nal light, while the other descends unbroken down 
to earth, held firmly by " those who know," and add, 
thread by thread, to the woof. Each mantra recited, 
each sdman sung, each sacrificial rite accomplished, 
is such a thread. And still the tissue grows, and 
still the pattern spreads, resplendent and many- 
colored, and the sacrificial shuttle is never still. 

11. If the terrestrial sacrifice is a reproduction of 
the celestial phenomena on which hinges the exist- 
ence of the world, — in mythical phrase the " finding 
of Agni and Soma " — and thereby influences them 
and helps produce them, the question quite logically 
presents itself : " And what produces them up 
there ? " and it is no less good logic (mythical logic) 
to reply : " Celestial sacrifice of course." Somebody 

' A. Bergaigne's rendering, La Religion Vedique, i., p. 137, 



SACRIFICE. 397 

sacrifices in heaven, to accomplish the same results 
that we strive for — and attain — by sacrificing here on 
earth. Forthwith the mental process is reversed. 
The entire universe becomes a huge place of sacrifice 
and every act of the great heavenly and atmospheric 
drama is strained so as to make it the parallel of a 
corresponding act in the sacrificial drama on earth. 
Agni, as the Sun, is the offspring of the golden arani 
manipulated by the Ashvins ; Agni's blazing log 
burns brightly in the sky ; the sea of light out of 
which he rises in the East is the ^/^^^ (clarified butter) 
made of the golden milk of the dawn-cows, which 
feeds the flame on the altar and makes it leap and 
soar ; the pillars of light that rise straight out of the 
darkness at daybreak are the sacrificial posts ; the 
slanting rays, so visible before the sun is yet in full 
splendor, are the sacrificial grass with which is 
strewn the vedi, the seat of the gods, which is the 
great orient East itself. As Lightning, Agni is found 
in the celestial ocean, is drawn from the motherly 
waters by "the ten fingers" of heavenly sacrificers ; 
is struck out of the rock (the black thundercloud). 
The storm-drama can easily be converted into a 
celestial Soma-sacrifice, simply by reversing the sym- 
bolism of the terrestrial Soma-sacrifice. This is done 
all through Book IX. of the Rig-Veda (the Soma 
book) till at times one is puzzled to know whether 
one is in the sky or on earth. Soma is the divine 
race-horse sent out " to win the prize " ; the " sisters " 
or " maidens " are the waters which fondle him as the 
ten fingers the stem of the plant ; the voices of the 
storm — thunder and the singing of the Maruts or 



39^ VEDIC INDIA, 

Angiras — are the hymns and the noise of the grind- 
ing-stones ; the sky is the filter or sieve ; the sainu- 
dra is the kettle where the divine drink is mixed ; 
earth is the receiving vat ; the atmosphere is the space 
between the sieve and the vat ; the heavenly cows 
whose lordly Bull Soma is, are the added draughts of 
milk. And Agni (as Lightning) is the hotar, the offi- 
ciating priest, the wise conductor of the sacrifice. In 
a word, as has been well and pithily said — " the whole 
ritual of sacrifice, with all its offerings and appur- 
tenances, its priests and offerings, is bodily translated 
from the sphere of human action to the world of the 
gods." ' 

12. The next question in our mythical Catechism 
is " Who are the celestial Sacrificers ? " One answer 
is so obvious as to suggest itself : The ancient 
Fathers, the sainted Pitris — the progenitors of the 
illustrious priestly races, and, as tradition often has 
it, of the human (or at least Aryan) race generally. 
This suits admirably with their semi-divine nature : 
inventors or " finders " of Sacrifice " up there," who 
transmitted their knowledge and power, like a 
precious milch-cow, to their descendants on earth. 
Of the many texts which convey this conception the 
most uncompromisingly decisive is the short hymn 
X., i8i, which 

"tells not only that Vasishtha, Bharadvaja, a troop of ancient sac- 
rificers, who are not named, brought or received from the sky, from 
the Sun, from the Creator's luminous abode, from Savitar, from Vish- 
nu, this or that oblation, this or that particular prayer, but that they 
' found the supreme essence of sacrifice which at first was out of 

' H. W. Wallis, The Cosmology of the Rig- Veda, p. 79. 



SACRIFICE. 399 

their reach and hidden ' (verse 2), that they ' found by prayer the 
fallen sacrifice, the first sacrifice which went to the gods.' That is 
the word: fallen. Like fire, sacrifice has fallen, dropped down from 
heaven, and men only send it back there, as fire is sent back to 
heaven." ' 

Celestial sacrifice, then, is the model, terrestrial 
sacrifice the copy. There is more than imitation ; 
there is absolute identity, since the two chief ele- 
ments are the same — Agni and Soma, in their ter- 
restrial forms. That is why the power, the effects 
are the same. Here is a fine text in point : " As 
thou, O Agni, didst perform the office of hotar on 
earth ; as thou, O Jatavedas, didst perform the office 
of hotar in heaven, — so, with this oblation, honor 
the gods, — -make our sacrifice successful this day as 
thou didst make that of Manu." (We know that 
Manu's sacrifice after the Flood resulted in re-peo- 
pling the earth. See pp. 337, 339.) 

13. But, as we go through the Rig-Veda, picking 
out and sorting the texts that bear on Celestial Sac- 
rifice, we find that it is not only the ancient Fathers 
who are actors in it, but quite as often the gods them- 
selves. The result is always the same, of course ; 
they " find " Agni and immediately institute him 
their hotar and ptirohita, (themselves becoming the 
rich patrons — yajamdndh — for whose benefit the sac- 
rifice is performed), whether in his atmospheric form 
as Lightning, or in his heavenly form as Sun, — for 
Surya is expressly called the purohita of the gods 
(VIII., 90, 19), " Mitra and Vdruna," one poet tells 
us, " and all the Maruts, O mighty Agni, sang a 

* A. Bergaigne, vol. i., pp. 107 _/. 



400 v:edic india. 

hymn to thee, when thou didst rise, O Surya, above 
the races of men." ' This is clear ; scarcely less so is 
the following: " Three thousand three hundred and 
thirty-nine gods did homage to Agni ; they fed him 
on ghee^ they spread out for him the sacred grass, 
and instituted him hotnr.'' Another result of the 
god's sacrificing is the sending of Agni doivn to earth 
for at the same time that they make him their priest, 
they also make him "their messenger" (another 
form of the " Descent of Fire "). There is a hymn 
(X., 88) which describes in most of its verses the sac- 
rifice performed by the gods. " The world was hid- 
den, swallowed in darkness." The gods sacrificed, 
and Agni was born ; there was joy in heaven and on 
earth, as he covered with his splendor the two worlds 
and the atmosphere. Into " this Agni " (the fire lit 
in heaven) the wise, holy gods poured libations, sing, 
ing hymns — then they divided him into three parts 
or forms, and placed one as Sun in the sky — to 
" travel forever inextinguishable and shine day by 
day." The hymn is long and elaborately mystical ; 
but this is the substance of it. 

14. But to whom is the celestial sacrifice offered ? 
That is a question which does not seem easy to 
answer. As regards the Fathers, the matter is simple 
enough: they sacrifice to the gods, of course. But 
to whom can the gods sacrifice? Two texts (both 
late) contain the answer. One is worded in general 
terms, the other is explicit. The former (X., 90, 16) 
says that " the Devas having, by sacrifice, earned 
their right to sacrifice, attained to the highest heaven, 
* III., 14, 4. Bergaigne's rendering, vol. i., p. 115. 



SACRIFICE. 401 

where the ancient gods are." The second text (X., 
15 ^ 3) occurs in the hymn to Shraddha (Faith): — 
" As the Devas worshipped with faith the mighty 
Asuras . . ." The " gods," therefore — the Devas 
— sacrifice to the "ancient gods" — the Asuras — 
Dyaus, and Varuna, and probably Rudra, Tvashtar, 
Parjanya ; the younger, Indo-Aryan gods to the 
mighty primeval-Aryan deities, whose rule is su- 
preme, whose abode is the highest, and whom, in 
the end, they supplant — or nearly so.^ 

15. Transcendental symbolism could take only one 
step more — and took it. There is a certain number 
of hymns addressed, not to one particular deity, but 
to many, or to all, collectively {%'ishvedevdJi). Of 
these X., 65 is particularly fine, because it invokes 
all the great nature-gods by name, with a brief 
mention of their attributes and functions. It is a 
masterly epitome of Vedic mythology. It has the 
following astonishing verse: 

" Drinking with Agni's tongue, heavenly, pure in mind, they sit by 
the centre of the sanctuary. They powerfully supported the heavens, 
they poured down the waters. Having invented [literally ' begotten' ] 
the sacrifice, they offered it to themselves ^^ 

1 Other texts might be adduced, pointing to the 

' Bergaigne suggests that this may have had something to do with 
the transformation which the meaning of the word " Asura" under- 
went. A subtle feeling of hostility crept into and pervaded the atti- 
tude of the followers of the second, Indo-Aryan, towards the 
few grand and particularly awful deities of the first, Proto-Aryan, 
dispensation, and by the usual process, that feeling was transferred to 
those deities, and a certain unfriendliness, even malignity, ascribed 

to them. The Greek theogony presents a parallel case. 
26 



402 VEDIC INDIA. 

same conception/ but they are not considered very 
clear and readings vary somewhat. This one, how- 
ever, does not seem to be doubtful. We are so used 
to the idea of sacrifice being an offering tendered to 
higher beings in thanksgiving or supplication, that 
our mind at first refuses to grasp what seems so utter 
an absurdity as these same higher beings sacrificing 
to themselves. A bit of etymology may help us. If 
we take the word " sacrifice " in its literal Latin 
sense — that of " sacred action," not " offering " in 
particular, " oblation " being the proper word for 
that — the strange paradox will assume a somewhat 
different aspect. Celestial sacrifice, as a " sacred 
action," performed by the gods to " delight them- 
selves," presents nothing absurd or incomprehensible. 
This is about as far, however, as mythical meta- 
physics can go, — and, having got so far, perhaps we 
too have found the " supreme essence " of Aryan 
sacrifice " in the highest heaven." 

i6. After the spirit, the letter ; which means in 
this case the actual forms and rites of the terrestrial 
sacrifice. On this all-important feature of Aryan 
India, which Brahmanism developed to such unheard- 
of proportions, we can gather but little technical in- 
formation in the Rig-Veda ; for that we must go to 
the Brahmanas and the Sutras. The pressing of the 
Soma, indeed, is abundantly described and illustrated 
in the Rig. But the great Soma-sacrifice of the 
classical and epic period, though not more holy in 
essence, was, in practice, a very different affair : re- 
quiring preparations on an immense scale, taking up 
1 VI., II, 2 ; X., 8i ; X., 7, 6. 



SACRIFICE. 403 

many days with introductory rites and attendant 
ceremonies, and giving occupation to numbers of 
priests going into the hundreds, all of whom ex- 
pected — and received — ample dakshind ; so costly, 
in fact, as to be beyond the means of private devo- 
tion, and reserved for the most imposing public 
occasions, such as (and especially) the inauguration 
of a King or the celebration of a great victory. On 
such occasions it was very frequently preceded by 
the Horse-sacrifice {ashvamedhd), the distinctively 
royal sacrifice, which could be performed also by 
itself, usually by kings desirous of offspring. Epic 
poetry will, in due time, furnish us with gorgeous 
and most detailed descriptions of this gigantic 
pageant. For the present we must be content with 
such information as we can find in the Rig-Samhita. 
And that in truth is unexpectedly complete, once 
again bringing before us a stage of ritualism and 
symbolism strangely at variance with the long-alleged 
" simplicity " of religious conception and worship in 
the Rig-Veda. This information is contained in two 
hymns (I. , 162 and 163) which celebrate the sacrificial 
Horse, now describing with almost repulsive realism 
the actual slaughter and burning of the victim, now 
divinizing him in mystic strains which leave one in 
doubt whether it is an animal that is spoken of, or 
himself. Soma the King. — This assimilation, one 
might almost say identification, is certainly inten- 
tional, carrying out the idea of the reproduction of 
heavenly things on earth. For Agni (both as Light- 
ning and as Sun) and Soma are, as we have seen, the 
heavenly coursers, and the horse on earth is their 



404 



VEDIC INDIA. 



representative, their symbol, and when specially de- 
voted to them, becomes one with them — " goes to 
them" in death. Indeed he is of their race — devajdta. 
Therefore he is said to have " three forms," his 



I ' , r 1. 







: ri I ti V 






^-^, 



i^-i .- -^'^'^'^ ''J iJ_l5'li 




\ J 



;■ r . r 



\ ] 



■/i: ,,C 



' ^ 






m rr»tiiir"^~' 



34. — PART OF A HORSE-SACRIFICE PROCESSION (lATE WALL 

sculpture). 

"highest birthplace" is with Varuna, his winged 
head " speeds snorting along the easy, dustless paths 
of heaven." Winged is his body, his spirit pervadmg 
as the wind. And immediately after this: 



SACRIFICE. 405 

*' The fleet courser is proceeding towards the place of slaughter, his 
spirit intently fixed on the gods. The goat precedes him, the wise 
singers follow. The courser is proceeding towards the most glorious 
of abodes, to the Father and the Mother " (probably Dyaus-Heaven 
and Aditi, for he is once called an Aditya) ; "for even this day 
will he go to the gods, most welcome to them. . . ." 

The description of the actual sacrifice is given with 
such completeness in I., 162, that it will serve our 
purpose almost without any commentary : 

". . . When they lead by the bridle the richly adorned courser, 
the omniform goat \yishvariipd\ is led, bleating, before him. . . . 
Piishan's allotted share ; he will be welcomed by all the gods. . . . 
Tvashtar will conduct him to high honors. When men lead the 
horse, according to custom, three times around [the place of sacrifice], 
the goat goes before [and is killed first] to announce the sacrifice to 
the gods.^ The priest, the assistant, the carver [who is to divide the 
carcass], he who lights the fire, he who works the pressing-stones, 
and the inspired singer of hymns — will all fill their bellies with the 
flesh of this well-prepared offering. Those who fashion the post [to 
which the victim is to be bound], and those who bring it, and those 
who fashion the knob on top of it, and those who bring together the 
cooking vessels — may their friendly help also not be wanting. The 
sleek courser is now proceeding — my prayer goes with him — to the 
abodes of the gods, followed by the joyful songs of the priests ; this 
banquet makes him one with the gods." 

Here follows a sort of litany, long and tedious, but 
very curious, in which all that is the horse's own, 
even to the particles of his flesh that may adhere to 
the post, or the axe, or the nails of the sacrificing 

' The goat is always Pushan's " allotted share " at sacrifices ; the 
same at funerals. (A funeral is a sort of a sacrifice, for the dead man 
is "offered" to Agni and by him conveyed to the gods, like any 
other offering). This is why a goat is harnessed to Pushan's chariot, 
quite as much as on account of his rustic functions and character. 



406 VEDIC INDIA, 

priest, and the fat that may drop from the pieces 
of flesh, roasting on the spit — is bid follow him and 
be " his own among the gods " ; the same with any- 
thing that has ever been used by him or for him — 
his halter and blanket, his trappings and accoutre- 
ments ; all the grass he ever ate, or stepped or lay or 
rolled on ; all the vessels and implements and dishes 
that are going to be used to dress and cook and 
serve his flesh. This consecration is accompanied 
with the rather idle wish that nothing that will be 
done to him may cause him pain — neither the fire, 
nor the smoke, nor the seething pot ; and the hymn 
ends as mystically as it began : 

" May not thy breath of life oppress thee when thou goest to the 
gods ; \i. e. , ' may thy death-struggle be brief and easy ' ] ; may not 
the axe injure thy bodies ; ^ may not a hasty, unskilled carver, blunder- 
ing in his work, cleave thy limbs wrongly. Forsooth, thou diest not 
here, nor dost thou suffer any injury ; no, thou goest to the gods along 
fair, easy paths ; the two harits [Indra's] and the dappled deer [the 
Maruts'] will be thy comrades. . , ," 

17. One verse (8) of I., 163, evidently describes 
the sacrificial procession. "After thee, O Horse, 
comes the chariot ; after thee, the man ; after thee 
the hosts of the girls. . . ." As the verse ends with 
the statement that all the world is anxious to win 
the Horse's favor and that the gods themselves 
recognize his " heroic might " (if not even his 
superiority in heroic might), it has generally been 
taken mythically, all of it ; while it is very proba- 

' Bergaigne positively reads " bodies " in the plural, and interprets 
it as a mystical allusion to the threefold form of the Agni-and-Soma- 
horse, with which the sacrificial horse was identified, as seen above. 



SACRIFICE. 



407 



ble that we have here another of those mixtures of 
myth and reaHty which are so confusing and mis- 
leading. In the Horse-sacrifice as originally insti- 
tuted, and practised too, " the man " was indeed led 
after the horse, as the goat was led before him, and 
for the same purpose — to be sacrificed. For there 
can be no doubt whatever that human sacrifices were 
part of ancient Aryan worship. As shown elsewhere,* 
certain premises being accepted, nothing could be 
more logical, necessary, evenjuster; it merely meant 
going the whole length, and it is hardly probable 
that any race missed this stage of cruel logic, when 
sentiment is not yet sufficiently developed to stay 
the hand armed by what is mistaken for reason. The 
Indo-Aryas outdid all others in plain-speaking con- 
sistency. They openly classed man among ani- 
mals, counting him as the noblest and first, but 
still as one of them, primus inter pares, as has been 
felicitously remarked. Sacrifice was of two kinds : 
bloody and bloodless. Five " animals " are declared 
fit victims for the former : man, the horse, the steer, 
the sheep, and the goat. At a solemn sacrifice all 
five victims are to be immolated. Vedic rituals of 
undoubted authenticity — Shrauta-Sutras and texts 
in the Yajur Veda, all Shruti " revealed " — give the 
most detailed instructions as to the occasions of 
such sacrifices and the manner of them. One of 
these occasions was the building of city walls, when 
the bodies of the five victims were to be laid in the 
water used to mix the clay for the bricks, to which 
their blood was supposed to give the necessary firm- 
^ See Story of Assyria, ch. iv., especially pp. 118-129. 



408 VEDIC INDIA. 

ness — and probably, consecration. Another was the 
Horse-sacrifice, ashvainedha. Then there was the 
out-and-out human sacrifice — purushamedha — which 
ranks still higher, and for which the victim must be a 
Brahman or a Kshatriya, to be bought for a thousand 
cows and a hundred horses. An intensified form of 
purushamedha is that in which a large number of 
victims — 166 or even 184 — men of all sorts and con- 
ditions — are immolated. The Shatapatha-Brahmana 
itself, the most important of all, describes this whole- 
sale slaughter-ceremony. But the ritual suddenly 
breaks off and drops into narrative, giving us the fol- 
lowing legend : " Then, when the fire had already 
been carried around the victims (all bound to the 
several sacrificial posts) and they were just about to 
be killed, a voice was heard to speak : ' O man, do 
not accomplish it ! If thou didst accomplish it, one 
man would eat the other.' " To understand this, we 
must remember that the flesh of victims was partaken 
of by the sacrificers. It is therefore probably — and 
nothing could be more natural — the horror of canni- 
balism which caused the frightful practice to be 
abandohed, at the cost of logical inconsistency. Sub- 
stitutes were used at one time, such as golden human 
heads. Yet the custom of associating a human victim 
with the horse and goat in the ashvainedha, seems to 
have persisted for a while. Only it is prescribed to 
buy for the purpose ail old, decrepit, infirm leper, 
for whom, '' going to the gods " Could be only a most 
happy release. But even this wretched wreck must 
belong to one of the holiest and most illustrious 
Rishi families. However, the dislike of spilling 



SACRIFICE. 409 

blood and taking life (unless in war) which became 
so conspicuous and beautiful a feature of later Brah- 
manism, was already growing on the Indo-Aryas, 
and the same Brahmana — the Shatapatha — formally 
declares bloodless offerings to be more acceptable 
and fully as efficient, as usual, in the form of a 
legend or parable : 

"The gods at first took man as victim [literally 'sacrificial 
animal.'] Then the sacrificial virtue \i7iedha\ left him and went into 
the horse. They took the horse, but the med/ia went out of him also 
and into the steer. Soon it went from the steer into the sheep, from 
the sheep into the goat, from the goat into the earth. Then they dug 
the earth up, seeking for the medha and found it in rice and barley. 
Therefore, as much virtue as there was in all those five animals, so 
much there now is in this sacrificial cake \Jiavis made of rice and 
barley], i. e., for him who knows this. The ground grains answer to 
the hair, the water [with which the meal is mixed] to the skin, the 
mixing and stirring to the flesh, the hardened cake [in the baking] to 
the bones, the ghee with which it is anointed to the marrow. So the 
five component parts of the animal are contained in the havis. 

18. Human sacrifice is not mentioned in so many 
words in the Rig- Veda ; but it is alluded to, trans- 
parently, to use the Vedic phrase, " for those who 
know." Not only in verse 8 of the Horse hymn, 
quoted above, but more undoubtedly in two texts 
which allude to the rescue of one Shunahshepha, 
an adopted son of the Rishi Vishvamitra: 

■' Bound Shunahshepha thou, O Agni, didst deliver from a thou- 
sand posts because he prayed fervently to thee ; so deliver us, too, O 
shining /zc/rtr, from our bonds. — (V. , 27.) 

" Varuna the king will deliver us, he whom the captive Shunah- 
.shepha invoked once on a time. For Shunahshepha, being trebly 
bound to the post, called out to the Aditya. — (I., 24, 12, 13.) 



410 VEDIC INDIA. 

An allusion to the same old story is certainly con- 
tained in verse 21 of the following hymn, I., 25 : 
" That! may live, take from me the upper rope, loose 
the middle, and remove the lowest." Indeed, tradi- 
tion was so positive on the point that it ascribed 
both these hymns to Shunahshepha himself. This 
would show that Varuna's " threefold fetters or 
nooses " are not always the allegorical ones of dark- 
ness, sickness, and death, but like most of the Rig- 
Veda's mysticism, have an underlying realistic 
meaning to them — very realistic in this case. The 
story itself we find in one of the great Brahmanas, 
possibly the oldest, the AlTAREYA, which belongs to 
the Rig-Veda, and therefore was bound to explain 
such obscure passages and allusions. This is con- 
vincing evidence of the fact that though the Brah- 
manas are necessarily later, they may and often do 
contain matter older than the Rig itself. For what 
is alluded to in a work as generally known, must 
have existed before that work did. The following 
is the story condensed.' 

19. There was a powerful king, Harishchandra, 
who had a hundred wives, but no son. By the ad- 
vice of a great sage who lived in his house, he went 
to Varuna the King and said : " May a son be born 
to me, and I shall sacrifice him to thee ! " Varuna 
said " Yes," and a boy was born to the king who 
named him RoillTA. Varuna soon claimed the child. 
But the father succeeded in obtaining respite after 
respite, until Rohita grew to young manhood, and 

^ It is also told in the Ramayana and some Puranas, with unessen- 
tial variations. 



SACRIFICE. 41 1 

was girt with his armor. Then Varuna would wait 
no longer, and the king could find no more excuses. 
So he said to his son : '* Child, he gave thee to 
me, that I sacrifice thee to him." The son said 
" No," took his bow, and went to the forest, where 
he lived for a year. Then Varuna vented his anger 
on the king, whom he afflicted with dropsy. Rohita, 
meanwhile, met a Brahman on his wanderings, who 
advised him to travel. It was Indra in human form. 
" The fortune of a man who sits," he said, " sits also. 
It rises when he rises, sleeps when he sleeps, and 
moves when he moves. Travel ! A traveller finds 
honey, a traveller finds sweet figs. Look at the 
happiness of the sun, who, travelling, never tires. 
Travel ! " Rohita travelled six years, at the end of 
which he met in the forest a starving Rishi, of the holy 
Angiras race, who had three sons. Rohita said to 
him : " Rishi, I give thee a hundred cows ; I ransom 
myself with one of these thy sons." The father 
embraced the eldest and said : " Not him ! " The 
mother embraced the youngest and said : " Not 
him ! " So they agreed to sell Shunahshepha, the 
middle son. And Rohita took him to the king, who 
offered him to Varuna in exchange for his son. Vd- 
runa said : " Yes ; for a Brahman is better than a 
Kshatriya," and ordered the king to prepare a great 
royal sacrifice. Shunahshepha was to be the victim 
for the day when the Soma is offered to the gods. 
Vishvamitra was the hotar on this occasion. But 
when Shunahshepha was prepared, they could get 
nobody to bind him to the sacrificial post. His own 
father, who had sold him, did it for a hundred more 



412 VEDIC INDIA. 

COWS. But no one could be found to kill him. His 
father declared himself willing to do that also for 
still a hundred more, and approached his son, whet- 
ting his knife. Shunahshepha thought : " They will 
really kill me, as if I were not a man.' I shall pray 
to the gods." He prayed to them all in succession, 
one sending him on to another. Ushas came last. 
While he prayed to her his fetters were loosed and 
dropped off him, and the king's dropsy left him, so 
he was well again, and the victim that was to have 
been was requested, instead, to perform the sacri- 
fice of the day. The Rishi now claimed his son 
and wanted to take him back with him. But Shu- 
nahshepha absolutely refused to follow him, appeal- 
ing for protection to Vishvamitra, who supported 
him, saying : " Dreadful was he as he stood with his 
knife ready to kill. Be not his son. Come and be 
my son." Shunahshepha said : " Tell us thyself, O 
son of a king, how I, who am an Angirasa, shall be- 
come thy son." * Vishvamitra replied : " Thou shalt 
be the eldest of my sons, thy offspring shall be the 
first ; thou shalt receive the heritage which the gods 
have given me." On this understanding the adop- 
tion took place. Vishvamitra had a hundred sons, 
fifty of whom (the elder half) rebelled at having a 

^ On such occasions, explains the commentator, it was customary 
to release the man and the larger animals at the last moment, after 
their purification by carrying the fire around them (see above, the 
legend from the Shatapatha), and only the sheep and the goat were 
killed. Thus was sacrifice commuted into consecration. (See Story 
of Assyria, pp. 121, 124.) 

'^ Vishvamitra, though a Brahman in dignity and a Rishi, was, as 
we know, a Rajana by birth. 



SACRIFICE. 413 

stranger placed over them. Their father cursed 
them, and they went forth as outcasts, they and 
their descendants becoming the worst of Dasyus. 
The other fifty cheerfully submitted, and, receiving 
their father's blessing, lived happy and prosperous.* 
20. It is very easy to disentangle the kernel of this 
story from the Brahmanic additions and flourishes, 
which, however, for once do not mar it. Disapproval 
shows from every line, and we are allowed to infer 
that already at a very early period this most awful 
of all sacred rites was only simulated in the perform- 
ance, instead of being carried out to the bitter end. 
But that very disapproval is manifestly a protest 
against something that really existed, and we cannot 
exonerate our Aryan ancestors from the blot which 
appears to rest on all races — that of having, at some 
time, practised the abomination of human sacrifices. 

' See Max Mliiler, Ancient Sanskrit Literature, pp. 408-419. 




CHAPTER XI. 

THE RIG-VEDA : COSMOGONY. — PHILOSOPHY. — 

RETROSPECT. ' ' 

I. Of the many fleeting moods which waft a fra- 
grance of true poetry from the too often barren, or 
—worse still — weed-ridden garden-beds of the Rig- 
Veda, there is undoubtedly none that interests us 
and appeals to us more than the questioning mood, 
which now and then, quite rarely, breaks out in un- 
expected places — the bud of choicest promise on the 
tender yet already vigorous plant of earnest human 
thought, as distinguished from mere imaginative 
speculation, great as is the charm of the latter. 
When those old Rishis (who, personally, may not 
have been old when they thought and sang !), when 
they pause in the midst of an invocation, a hymn of 
praise, to ask wonderingly, sincerely, " Where is the 
sun by night?" "Where go the stars by day?" 
" Why does the sun, being neither supported nor 
fastened to anything, not fall down ? " " Of the two 
— Night and Day — which is the elder, which the 
younger?" "Whence comes the wind and whither 
goes it?" and " how is it that it raises no dust on 
the paths of heaven ? nor the chariot of the sun 



COSMOGON Y.^PHILOSOPH Y. 4 15 

either?" — we are overcome by a feeling as of awe, 
tender and pathetic, as when we hear the first ear- 
nest questions (very much the same, too ! ) from the 
lips of our children in the midst of their amusing 
prattle, and mark the widely opening eyes with the 
first sharp gleam of the spirit life in them, as each in 
turn reaches out feeble but longing hands, instinc- 
tively groping for the fruit of the tree of knowledge, 
with no dimmest perception of either its sweetness 
or its bitterness, its blessings or dangers. For the 
spirit that has once queried so is awake and will 
never be laid to sleep again ; it has started out of 
the repose of latent into the activity of conscious life, 
and has grappled the universal problem it is to 
wrestle with to the end and do its share to solve : 
the separation of that which may become known 
from that which never can be. 

2. It is peculiar that the direct question is never 
asked : " Who made the world " — or worlds — but 
only hozv it was made: how "they" made it, or — in 
the latest stage, when philosophical abstraction has 
reached the conception of one creator (a dhdtar, a 
prajdpati, a vishvakarniaii) — how he made it, — and 
out of zvhat. This particular question fully thought 
out and adequately worded, we encounter in two 
speculative hymns, of Book X., addressed one to 
" all the gods " {vishvedevdh), and again to Vishvakar- 
man, *' the artificer, or fashioner, of the universe." 

" What indeed was the wood, what the tree, out of which they 
fashioned [after the manner of carpenters] the heaven and the earth ? 
these two stand fast and grow not old forever, while many days and 
mornings pass away." (X., 31, 7.) 



41 6 VEDIC INDIA. 

"What was the standing-place, what the stable support, the posi- 
tion, and how was it, from which Vishvakarman, the all-seeing, pro- 
duced the earth and disclosed the heaven by his might? . . . 
What indeed was the wood, what the tree out of which they fash- 
ioned the earth and the heaven ? Inquire, ye wise ones, with your 
minds, what it was on which he took his stand when he made fast the 
world." (X., 8i, 2 and 4.) 

These verses are found in the Yajur-Veda also, 
and one of its commentaries, the Taittiriya-Brahmana 
answers the question thus: 

■' Brahma [neuter] was the wood, Brahma was that tree out of 
which they fashioned the heaven and the earth. Wise ones, with 
my mind I declare unto you, he took his stand on Brahma when he 
made fast the world." 

Perhaps as good an answer as the subject will ad- 
mit, at this transition stage from Vedic naturalism 
to the .spiritualism and pantheism of the Upanishads, 
— the stage when the Brahma is already felt as the 
universally present, latent life and force, which, mani- 
fested, becomes both matter in its tangible form and 
spirit in its active working, but not yet as the One, 
self-existing Soul of the All and Creator of the 
Worlds. 

3. Like all the phases of thought recorded in the 
Rig-Veda, the ideas on the making of the world pass 
before our eyes through several progressive stages, the 
first and simplest of which is well represented by this 
statement in one of the Vasishtha hymns: " Vkruna 
stemmed asunder the wide firmaments ; he lifted on 
high the bright and glorious heaven ; he stretched 
out apart the starry sky and the earth " (VIL, 86, 1). 
The same things are said of other gods also. But 



COSMOGONY. — PHILOSOPHY. 4lf 

when it comes to details, three distinct conceptions 
crystallize out of hundreds of texts bearing on the 
subject: (i) the gods dutU the world, carpenter-fash- 
ion, as the Aryas built their houses ; (2) the gods — this 
or that couple, especially Heaven and Earth or the 
gods generally — gave birth to the world, after the 
manner of living beings ; (3) the world was created 
through Sacrifice, as by Sacrifice it is kept going. 
The first of these conceptions may be classed almost 
entirely under poetical imagery ; the second, in great 
part, with ar. evident but rather clumsy flight into 
symbolism ; while the third, purely theological, soars 
into almost unattainable regions of abstruse mysti- 
cism.* Although the progression from simple to 
complicated is manifest, and such a progression im- 
plies progress and evolution, implying in their turn 
a vast period of time, it does not follow that the 
transition from step to step can be followed, much 
less chronologically classified. There is no method 
in the presentation of the three conceptions ; they 
are expressed promiscuously, often two, sometimes 
all three, in one and the same hymn, though the 
mystic vein is decidedly predominant in those which 
otherwise show internal evidence of lateness, and of 
which the greatest number (not by any means the 
totality) is collected in Book X. This shows that all 
three stages of thought had already been passed 
when the canon of the Rig-Veda was finally estab- 
lished, yielding still additional proof of the prodigi- 

* This is the conception so amply developed in the preceding chap- 
ter, and the final consecration of which will be given a few pages 
further on. 
27 



41 8 ■ VEDIC INDIA. 

ous antiquity of the subject-matter of the collection, 
which was to save it from oblivion and further 
corruption for a generation who had gone far greater 
lengths on the two opposite ways — the freedom of 
soaring thought and the bondage of priest-ridden 
ritualism. 

4. We have seen the sun described as a tree with 
its top down and its roots up (see p. 144), and are 
familiar with the thoroughly worked out image of 
the heavens as the tree of the wonderful foliage; 
this quite easily led to the question : " What was the 
wood, what the tree?" etc. And as to the birth 
theory, we are well used to such expressions as " the 
Bright-one is born qf the Dark-one " (Day of Night), 
" Heaven and Earth whose children are the Devas," 
and the like. This is one form, and a very favorite 
one, of the so-called " mythic riddles," with which 
the Rig-Veda teems. The sacrifice-theory we went 
into at great length in the preceding chapter ; but 
we have now to examine a most important hymn 
in which it finds its crowning expression— the widely 
famous, mystic PuRUSHA-SUKTA (X., 90), to which 
allusion has already been made as belonging to the 
very latest stage of the Rig-Veda^ — if not already 
to the period succeeding it^ and savoring more of 
the Ganges than the Indus, since, it contains the 
only formal mention of caste in the collection (see 
p. 280), and of the original three Vedas, perhaps 
even the Atharva Veda. In a way this hymn 
supplements and completes the most mystical-of 
the verses addressed to Vishvakarman, the " Arti- 
ficer of the Universe " : " The highest, the lowest 



COSMOGONY.— PHILOSOPHY. 419 

and the middle stations that are thine, teach to 
thy friends at the sacrifice ; do thou sacrifice to 
thyself, delighting thyself," — or that to Agni (X., 7, 
6) : " In Heaven sacrifice, O Deva, to the Devas . . . 
and in the same manner sacrifice to thyself, O thou 
of the beautiful birth." For these passages do not 
inform us what or whom the gods are to sacrifice — or 
rather/'sacrificed — as a means of creation. Indeed 
we saw that in this very vagueness lay the best 
answer, by leaving us to imagine the heavenly phe- 
nomena of light and storm as a " sacred action 
performed by the gods for their own delight, in 
accordance with an eternal law." But such majestic, 
comprehensive vagueness did not suit the subtilized 
and de-poetized brains of the later theologians. 
Everything had to be explained and told all about, 
leaving no room for dreaming and imaginings. So 
we are given, in the Purusha-Sukta, the story of 
Creation in the guise of a Divine Sacrifice with a 
precision and fulness of detail which make of it a 
complete Cosmogony, — one, too, which left its trace 
on that of other kindred races.' The peculiar theme 
was most probably suggested by human sacrifices, 
when the institution — avowedly a very ancient one, 
as we shall presently see — was still in active force ; 
the fact that the Purusha-hymn is particularly men- 
tioned as having been sung actually at human sacri- 
fices (puriisha-medha) favors this hypothesis. 

5. Purusha — more correctly the Purusha, the Pri- 

' Compare the Scandinavian Cosmogonic legend (in the Edda) of 
the making of the world out of the different members of the primeval 
giant Ymer's body. — For the meaning of the word " Cosmogony " 
see Story of Chaldea, pp. 2.^c)ff. 



420 VEDIC INDIA. 

meval Giant or Male Principle, The Man — is the 
victim whom the gods offer up and the dissection of 
whose body — which is simply the material to %vork 
with, the whole of pre-existing Matter, with its 
latent possibilities for generating life — produces the 
various parts of the universe with their denizens, of 
course with special reference to our habitable earth, 
as far as known to the Aryas of India. With these 
few hints and the insight we have been gaining all 
along into the mythical metaphysics of Brahman ic 
theology, the Purusha-Sukta will need but little com- 
ment to be intelligible. 

I. Purusha of the thousand heads, the thousand eyes, the thousand 
feet, covered the earth in all directions and extended ten finger 
breadths beyond. — 2. Purusha is this whole universe, whatever has 
been, and whatever shall be, and a possessor of the immortality 
which groweth great by food (offered in sacrifice ?). — 3. So great is 
Purasha, yea, greater still. One quarter of him is all that hath been 
made, three quarters of him are the immortals in heaven. — 4. "With 
three feet Purusha mounted up, with one foot he remained here ; 
then he spread out on all sides and became that which eateth 
and that which eateth not.^ — 5. From him the Virdj was born, 
and from the ' Virdj again Purusha." As soon as he was 
born he reached out beyond the earth at both ends. — 6. When 
the gods prepared the sacrifice with Purusha as the offering, 
the spring was the sacrificial butter, the summer was the fuel, 

' " One foot" and " three feet " is literal ; and so A. Bergaigne 
renders it. Other scholars translate " one quarter " and " three 
quarters, " and this version is retained in v. 3, because there the other 
would be too grotesque. We shall see presently what the mystic 
" foot " means. 

" The Vi7-Aj is a ponderous and solemn sacred metre, said to con- 
sist oi forty syllables. That metre is born of sacrifice and sacrifice of 
metre is a familiar mystical conception. This is the explanation 
given by the Shatapatha-Brahmana ; it commends itself by its simplic- 
ity and its conformity to Vedic modes of thought and speech. 



COSMOGONY. — PHILOSOPHY. 42 1 

the autumn was the (accompanying) oblation. — 7. On the sacrificia>. 
grass they anointed the victim, that Purusha who was born in the be- 
ginning ; him the gods sacrificed, whose favor is to be sought, and 
the Rishis. — 8. When the sacrifice was completed, they collected the 
fat dripping from it ; it formed the creatures of air, and the animals 
that live in forests, and those that live in villages (wild and domes- 
tic). — 9. From this sacrifice when completed were born the Rig- 
hymns, and the Sama-hymns, and the incantations (probably the 
future Atharvan) ; and the Yajus was born from it. — 10. From it were 
born the horses and all the cattle that have two rows of teeth ; the 
kine were born from it ; from it the goats and sheep were born.' — 11. 
When they divided Purusha, into how many parts did they cut him 
up ? What was his mouth ? What were his arms ? What are his 
thighs and his feet called ? — 12. The Brahman was his mouth; the 
Rajanyawas made from his arms ; the Vaishya he was his thighs ; the 
Shudra sprang from his feet. — 13. The moon was born from his 
mind ; the sun from his eye ; Indra and Agni from his mouth ; from 
his breath the wind was born. — 14. From his navel came the air ; 
from his head sprang the sky, from his feet the earth, from his ear the 
regions ; thus they formed the worlds. — 15. When the gods bound 
Purusha as victim, preparing the sacrifice, seven enclosing bars of 
wood were placed for him, thrice seven layers of fuel were piled for 
him. — 16. So the gods through sacrifice earned a right to sacrifice; 
these we7-e the first ordinances. Those mighty ones attained to the 
highest heaven, where the ancient gods abide, whose favor is to be 
sought." 

6. It is a common saying that any one fool can ask 
questions which it takes seven wise men to answer. 
The case is sometimes reversed. It takes genius and 
soul to ask certain questions, and minds which are 
not master minds take on themselves to answer 
them. This is the case with most questions in the 
Rig- Veda. What heights and depths of thought, of 
reverent longing for the truth — the absolute truth — 

' It will be noticed that these are the very four animals who, with 
man (Purusha) at their head, are declared fit for sacrifice (see pp. 
406-409). 



422 VEDIC INDIA. 

are revealed by such questions as these : " Who has 
seen the First-Born, when he that had no bones {i.e.y 
form) bore him that has bones ? Where is the hfe, 
the blood, the Self of the universe ? Who went 
to ask of any who knew?" (I., 4, 164). The word 
which philosophical scholars have rendered " the 
Self " is dtman, literally "■ breath " or " spirit " (which 
is the same thing), and derived from the same root, 
AS, " to breathe," which has given one form of the 
verb " to be " in Sanskrit and several other Aryan 
languages. ' With every desire to penetrate into the 
very abstract inness of things, the human mind, being 
unable ever quite to cut itself adrift from the reali- 
ties of material existence, was compelled to hold fast 
this slight thread of materialism ; but then, of ma- 
terial things, what could be less material, more un- 
substantial? A breath — a thing which is not seen, 
yet is life itself, for when it stops, life ceases ! Who 
or what, then, is the breath, the life, the dtinan of 
the universe, — its essence, real, yet invisible? Surely, 
more spirituality is required to be the first to ask 
these questions, than for all the writers of the Upani- 
shads to answer them. For these are some of the 
themes of those grand Brahmanic treatises which 
embrace all that the ancient Greeks used to under- 
stand under the name of " philosophy," and which 
included investigations and theories concerning crea- 
tion, the nature of things, the study of the world 
and what it holds. In this sense all the cosmological 
and metaphysical portions of the Rig-Veda may 
already be entitled Upanishads, as they certainly 

^ Sskr. asnii, Slav, esmiy Lat. sum, etc., etc., " I am." 



COSMOGGNY.— PHILOSOPHY. 423 

form the transition to the Upanishad period and 
literature. The Purusha-Sukta has been so called ; 
so we may call a short cosmogonic piece (X., 190), 
wonderfully concise and comprehensive both, and 
quite intelligible when we have the key to this class 
of speculations with its peculiar form of speech: 

" From kindled heat (tdpas) Right and Law were born {sdtyazxiA. 
rita, the Cosmic Order,) and Night, then the watery ilood. — And 
from the watery flood the coursing year was born, disposing Day and 
Night, the ruler of all that close the eyes.' — And in their order the 
Creator formed the sun and moon, and heaven and earth, the regions 
of the air and light." 

This might truly be called a Vedic genesis-chap- 
ter, but it is by no means the only one. Many are 
the passages — not all in. the late portions either — 
where the Origin of Things is set forth in the same 
pregnant, but obscurely mythical form. One of the 
finest is a passage in the second hymn to Vishvakar- 
man (X., 82, 5-6), which, in the guise of one ques- 
tion and answer, contains in substance the main fact 
of the later Brahmanic cosmogony. The waters, it 
is there said, received the first — or primordial — germ 
containing all the gods, — the germ which rested 
alone on the lap of the Unborn — AjA— the One in 
whom all existing things abide. Who does not see 
how easily this " first germ " could become the 
World-Egg (more commonly known as the Mundane 
Egg) floating for ages unnumbered — " from the be- 
ginning" — on the primeval waters of Chaos, until 
the Principle of Universal Life, the Brahma (neuter) 
which rested therein, latent and inactive, sprang out 
as Brahma (masculine), the active creative principle 
—the Maker of all the worlds ? 



424 VEDIC INDIA. 

7, The " Unborn," — frequently also called " the 
One," Ekam — means that which has always existed 
without being born of anything, the Eternally-Pre- 
existing, of which all things are born, when the de- 
sire of manifesting Itself awakes in It. Sometimes 
the One is named AjA EkapAd, literally " the 
One-footed Unborn " — a seemingly grotesque ap- 
pellation, which has given rise to as grotesque inter- 
pretations, but which is really only one of those 
attempts at expressing the inexpressible in some kind 
of tangible form in which the Aryan thinkers of 
India have always dealt, regardless of extravagance 
in the wording. For in the Rig-Veda, the " foot " 
may stand for the world in which the foot's owner 
abides. So Vishnu is said to know his own highest 
abode, — the third, while only two are known to men — 
and the source of light is said to be " at his feet ; " 
and his "three strides" also mean nothing else than 
that he has his feet in the three worlds, — the two 
visible ones and the third, highest, invisible one (see p. 
240). Again, the Purusha has one foot on the earth, 
and three in the heavenly worlds of the immortals, 
i. e., in the two other worlds and the fourth — the 
highest, invisible one (see p. 420). For there is always 
one world more than the known number. If " the two 
worlds " are spoken of — Heaven and Earth — there is 
a third ; if "the three worlds " — Earth, Atmosphere, 
and Heaven — there is a fourth ; this third, this fourth 
world is the hidden, the unreachable, unknowable 
one, which is also sometimes called the Sanctuary of 
the Universe, and the Navel, /. e., the Parent, the 
Centre, of all Origins. Sometimes, by a peculiarly 



COSMOGONY, — PHILOSOPHY. 425 

Vedic play on numbers, each world is again divided 
into three, and we have, instead of "the two worlds," 
"the six worlds ": then there is the seventh. ' This 
supernumerary hidden world is the only one in which 
the One Unborn abides, equally mysterious and un- 
conceivable, yet firmly felt to exist, — belin'ed in 
though not seen ; it is, in Vedic riddle-phrase, the 
only world in which he has his foot, — hence Aja 
Ekapad, " the One-footed Unborn." The verse 
quoted a few pages back : " Who has seen the First- 
born ? " etc. (L, 164, 5) is followed up by these eager 
questionings : 

" Not knowing, I go to ask of those who know, that I may know, 
I who do not know : he who stretched apart and established the six 
worlds, in the form of the Unborn, did he also establish the seventh? 
Let him speak here who knows the hidden place of the beautiful 
Bird." 

The admission of ignorance (and it occurs over 
and over through the Samhita), so simple, so sincere, 
is deeply touching. They will " go ask," but they 
hardly hope to be answered. The poet who de- 
scribes Vishvakarman as the " First-born of the 

' So the chariot of Surya, like that of the Ashvins has three wheels ; 
two the Brahmans know, " but the third, the hidden one, is known 
only to the deep-enquiring " (see p. 370). And the mystic World-Bull 
in IV. , 58, 2-3 (one of the many hymns that treats of Sacrifice in mystic 
guise) has two heads, three feet, four horns, seven hands, because he is 
present in all the worlds : the two, the three, the four, and the six — 
with always the hidden world added. The seven bars of wood and 
the thrice seven layers of fuel, laid for Purusha (see p. 421) belong 
to the same order of ideas : they symbolize the six worlds, plus the 
one hidden world (see A. Bergaigne, Religion Vedique, vol. ii., pp. 
20-25). 



426 VEDIC INDIA. 

Waters," as " our father, our creator, our maker " 
(see p. 264) concludes reverently and sadly : " Ye 
never will behold him who gave birth to these things ; 
something else it is that appears among you. 
Wrapped in darkness, and stammering, wander 
through life the singers of hymns." So that those 
ancient fathers of our race's greatest thinkers, of the 
men for whom thought became a fine art, the occu- 
pation and the end of life, had already found the 
wisdom which concedes that some questions are 
answered best when left unanswered ; had, in all 
humility, learned the lesson which comes so hard 
to our overbearing modern Science, when she too — 
for with all her imperfections she is honest — is forced 
to bend her haughty head, and break her proud lips 
to utter the words most galling to her self-confidence : 
" I do not know." 

8. In their efforts to pierce the gloom of things 
before time was, " before (or beyond ?) the earth, the 
heaven and the Asura-gods," the Vedic thinkers 
achieved a conception of primeval chaos, unquickened 
as yet by the first fiat of Creative Will, yet brooded 
over by the Divine Presence, which their great 
poetic gift enabled them to clothe in such words 
as, to use Max Miiller's enthusiastic expression, 
" language blushes at, but her blush is a blush of 
triumph." It is the famous cosmogonic hymn X., 
129, the great Vedic Upanishad, which contains 
more than in germ the substance of those later 
Brahman ic philosophical treatises, which received 
the name of Vedanta-Upanishads, i. e., " the end 
or final goal of the Veda." One of the great 



COSMOGONY. — PHILOSOPHY. 427 

beauties of this matchless piece is that, while reach- 
ing the uttermost bounds of philosophical abstrac- 
tion, it is never obscure, unless to the absolutely 
uninitiated. 

"i. Nor Aught nor Naught existed then; not the aerial space, 
nor heaven's bright woof above. What covered all ? Where rested 
all ? Was it water, the profound abyss ? 

"2. Death was not then, nor immortality ; there was no differ- 
ence of day and night.' That One breathed breathless in Itself \i. e., 
existed, but without exerting or manifesting itself j •; and there was 
nothing other than It. 

" 3. In the beginning there was darkness in darkness enfolded,' 
all was undistinguishable water. That One, which lay in the empty 
space, wrapped in nothingness, was developed by the power of heat.^ 

"4. Desire first arose in It — that was the primal germ of mind, 
which poets, searching with their intellects, discovered in their hearts 
to be the bond between Being and Not-Being.'* 

^ I.e., "time was not yet," because time is known only by the 
alternation of day and night. Therefore, in Genesis I., the first 
work of creation is to " divide the light from the darkness." 

' Compare all this to Genesis I., 2 : " And darkness was on the 
face of the deep, and the spirit of God was moving (or brooding) on 
the face of the waters." 

* Tdpasas, "by heat" or "out of heat." Attention has been 
drawn to an important difference in the reading given in the Tait- 
tiriya Brahmana — td??iasas — which would mean " out of darkness." 
It is suggested that this might have been the older reading. 

^ Desire (to manifest itself) the first stirring of sentient will, 
which must itself precede action. The word is kdnia. It became 
(from obvious association) the word for " love " and the name of the 
love-god. The Greek language and mythology presents an exactly 
parallel case : Eros, the name of the love-god, originally means 
"desire." And by the light of this marvellous effort of Vedic 
thought, the main features of the Cosmogonic fragment in Hesiod's 
Theogony acquire a new and startling significance : " Sing the 
sacred race of immortals who sprang from Earth and starry Heaven 
and murky Night, whom the briny deep bore [in X., 190 — see above, 
the 'watery flood' is born from Night]. . . . Foremost sprang 



428 VEDIC INDIA. 

" 5. The ray of light which stretched across these worlds, did it 
come from below or from above ? Then seeds were sown and mighty 
forces arose, Nature beneath and Power and Will above. 

"6. Who indeed knows? Who proclaimed it here, — whence, 
whence this creation was produced ? The gods were later than its 
production — who then knows whence it sprang ? 

" He from whom this creation sprang, whether he made it or not, 
the All-Seer in the highest heaven, he knows it — or he does not." ' 

Startling indeed are the last lines — most startling 
the last words. The despondency, the hopelessness 
of them, is like the sudden relaxing of a superhuman 
tension. It also seems to foreshadow the cloud 
which was to fall on the spiritual life of the Aryas 
of India, after altered conditions of life, and espe- 
cially the physically enervating climatic influences 
of their new abodes, had changed the joyous, some- 
what belligerent, nature-worship, utterly untram- 
melled with laming self-consciousness, of the first 
settlers of the Sapta-Sindhavah into the introspec- 
tive brooding, so destructive to action and single- 
hearted enjoyment, of the dwellers on the Ganges. 
That cloud was their incapacity to make their reli- 
gion a comfort to themselves. True, they did not 
seek for happiness, but for Absolute Truth. So 
when their powerful intellects led them to a percep- 
tion of The One, there was no joy in the finding, 
unless it were the cold joy of the enquiring mind — 
the gleam of the beacon that lights but warms not, — 

Chaos, and next broad-bosomed Earth \^prithivi\ . . . and 
Eros, most beautiful of immortals. ..." This Eros is the Cos- 
mogonic Kama — Desire — of our hymn — the prompter of the act of 
creation. 

' See especially Max MuUer's Ancient Sanskrit Literature, pp. 
559-564. 



COSMOGONY. — PHILOSOPHY. 429 

for there had not been love in the seeking. And 
THE One was to them It — remote, impersonal, 
therefore as good as non-existent. Yet, if they had 
not looked for happiness, they missed it all the 
same ; they missed it so, that life, with its miseries 
unrelieved by trust or hope, became worthless — ex- 
istence a burden, deliverance from which was the 
one thing devoutly to be wished for. But this is 
trespassing on a decidedly post-vedic field, on things 
which are, as just shown, only foreshadowed in the 
Rig. 

9. This question of monotheism in the Rig-Veda 
has been all along an exceedingly vexed one. In 
the first place, can the Vedic Aryas be said to have 
achieved monotheism at all ? Strange question to 
ask of so rampantly polytheistic a religion ! Yet 
the perception of The One Unborn existing before 
time and beyond space, to which they struggled by 
sheer force of reasoning, is very near it ; it is, at all 
events, the nearest even their descendants, those 
champion thinkers of the world, ever came to it. 
They came near it, but still they missed it — in what 
manner we have just seen — at least as we understand 
the word.' The earlier Vedic poets perhaps came 
nearest of all to that, when they prayed to Varuna, 
the punisher and forgiver of sins, when they bade 
men " fear him who holds the four dice before He 
throws them down," and assured them that " his path 
is easy and without thorns who does what is right " 
(I., 41), before subtle arguing had killed intuition 

' Not so the Eranians. The Avestan Ahura-Mazda, as Zarathushtra 
saw and heard Him, is not a principle or a god, but God. 



430 VEDIC INDIA. 

and warmth of feeling. Yes, they almost hit the 
mark then, but glanced off somehow. 

10. There is another tendency which runs through 
the entire Rig-Veda and which, at first sight, looks 
like a reaching out towards monotheism. It assumes 
two forms. The first, which we have had repeated 
occasions to notice, is that of extolling the particular 
deity invoked at the time above all the others and 
ascribing to it the same actions and functions which, 
in other hymns, are named as especially belonging 
to this or that god. This is the stage which will 
retain the name improvised for it by Max Miiller : 
HENOTHEISM or KATHENOTHEISM ; i. e., the worship, 
not of one god only, but '' of one god at a time." This 
peculiarity is accounted for by the worshipper's wish 
to ingratiate himself with the god he addresses and 
of course asks favors from ; and the explanation is 
good — so far as it goes. But it is superficial. There 
is far more to the practice than a mere point of 
courtesy or etiquette, as is shown by another way 
the Vedic poets have, and which will be found, on 
examination, to come from the same deeper source : 
that is their inveterate passion for identifying one 
god with another, or with several other gods, or 
several gods — or all — together. Profound scholars 
have seen in this only a puerile trick, a juggling with 
names and ideas resulting in nothing but puzzlement 
and confusion. But a closer study soon convinces 
that there is much method in the madness. The 
seemingly mechanical process of looking up and 
stringing together texts bearing on the matter, 
proves, in this case as in others, most helpful and 



COSMOGON Y. — PHIL OSOPH Y. 43 1 

light-bringing. The easiest of such identifications 
to interpret is that of such late abstractions as 
Vishvakarman, Prajapati, with several of the earlier 
great gods — Indra, Varuna, Tvashtar, Savitar, etc., 
simply because those names, as already pointed out, 
were originally mere epithets — " All-Maker," "Lord 
of Creatures." When Vishvakarman is described as 
the First-Born of the Unborn (for the phrase " the 
First-Born resting on the lap — literally the navel— oi 
the Unborn," can have no other meaning) ' we have 
another and covert identification, far more difficult 
to unravel, but on the same line of thought. Before 
we attempt to do so, we must study the First-Born 
under still another name, that of Hiranyagarbha, 
the "Golden Germ," or "Golden Embryo," which 
Professor Max Miiller has felicitously rendered " the 
Golden Child " in his translation of the most beauti- 
ful hymn, X., 121, in which the greatness and the 
works of the Creator, here named Hiranyagarbha, 
are celebrated in poetry which will stand comparison 
with that of the Book of Job. Very remarkable is 
the burden at the end of each verse which we must 
imagine as being taken up in chorus. The poet who 
sings of the glory of The One, feels the inconsistency, 
and asks, " Who is the god to whom we shall offer 
our sacrifice," i. e., " zvJiicJi of all the many gods to 
whom we address our prayers, is this One, to whom 
we are here to sacrifice this day ? " Here is the 
entire hymn : 

* Identical in meaning, if differently worded, with X., 129: the 
First-Born is the active creative principle whi.ch develops out of the 
One Unborn, the quiescent, unmanifested principle of life. 



432 VEDIC INDIA. 

" I. In the beginning there arose the Golden Child. He was the 
one born lord of all that is. He established the earth and this sky : 
— Who is the god to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? 

"2. He who gives breath \i. e., life], He who gives strength ; whose 
command all the gods revere ; whose shadow is immortality, whose 
shadow is death : — Who is the god, etc. 

" 3. He who through his greatness is the one king of the breathing 
and awakening world ; He who governs man and beast : — Who, etc. 

" 4. He whose greatness the Himavat, the samudra, the Rasa pro- 
claim^; He whose these regions are, as it were his two arms: — 
Who, etc. 

" 5. He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm ; He 
through whom the heaven was established, — nay the highest heaven ; 
He who measured out the aerial space : — Who, etc. 

"6. He to whom the two battle-hosts, sustained by his support, 
look up trembling in spirit, there where the risen sun shines : — 
V/ho, etc. 

" 7. When the mighty waters pervaded the universe, holding the 
germ and begetting fire, thence He arose, who is the sole life of gods : 
— Who, etc. 

" 8. He who by His might looked even over the waters which 
gave strength and lit the sacrifice ; — He who alone is god above all 
the gods : — Who, etc. 

" 9. May He not harm us, the Creator of this earth ; who, ruling 
by fixed ordinances, created the heaven ; who also created the bright 
and mighty waters : — Who, etc." 

II. The writers of the Brahmanas make it a busi- 
ness to answer all the questions left open by the 
more truly inspired Rishis — and we often wish they 
did n't. In this case, however, it might have been 
worse. We read in the Shatapatha, " VVJio {i.e., the 
Unknown God whom the Rishi sought] is Prajapati : 

* Prof. Max Miiller renders (and so do most translators) : " these 
snowy mountains, the sea and the distant river." But the original 
Vedic names convey a special, very marked flavor, and as they have 
repeatedly occurred and been discussed in the preceding chapters 
there was no objection to giving them. 



COSMOGONY. — PHILOSOPHY. 433 

to him let us offer our sacrifice." And some conscien- 
tious theologian forthwith embodies the answer in a 
verse which he tacks on to the beautiful poem, the flat- 
test anticlimax that ever was devised : " O Prajapati, 
' no other than thou hath embraced all these created 
things ; may what we desired when we called upon 
thee be granted to us ; may we be lords of riches." 
Prajapati — Lord of creatures, or " of created things " 
— being a descriptive name given to many of the great 
gods in their role of creators, is a satisfactory answer, 
as far as it goes. But it does not go far or deep 
enough. We have at last arrived at the point where 
we cannot be satisfied with less than an entire solu- 
tion of the riddle which we call the Rig-Veda ; where 
we must lift the veil of the very sanctuary itself and 
see what is the real essence of that One whom " wise 
poets make manifold by words." For that is to 
what, in the end, amounts all that shifting and merg- 
ing of divine personalities into one another, those 
multitudinous, identifications. 

12. If we collect, then carefully con these texts, 
we shall be led to the conclusion that there is one 
divine person who attracts and absorbs the others 
somewhat as a larger globule of quicksilver does any 
number of smaller ones. And as that globule, at the 
slightest jolt, breaks up again into an elusive bevy of 
small ones, so that divine entity, just when we think 
we are fairly grasping it, suddenly vanishes, and the 
polytheistic host confronts us in full array. That 
divine person or entity is Agni, he of the " three 
abodes " and the " three bodies " — as Sun, Light- 
ning, and Fire. We see the often fanciful identifi- 



434 VEDIC INDIA. 

cations tending that way, vaguely, obscurely, till now 
and then the poets are surprised into a definite 
statement which leaves no room for doubt. There 
is an entire hymn of many verses (II., i) in which 
the poet, after rehearsing the various births of Agni 
— from the Waters, from the cloud-rock, from the 
trees, from the herbs — proceeds, systematically, to 
identify him with nearly every god in the pantheon. 
Agni, he tells us, is Varuna, Mitra, and the other 
Adityas ; he is Indra and Vishnu, Tvashtar and 
Rudra, and the Maruts ; Pushan and Savitar, even 
the Ribhus, and others. More convincing, because 
briefer and simpler, is verse 46 of that long and 
mystical hymn L, 64, out of which some striking 
passages have already been quoted : ' 

"They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni; then he is the 
beautiful-winged heavenly Bird. That which is One the wise call it 
by divers names : they call it Agni, Yama, Matarishvan." 

Or this (quoted in part already) : " Wise poets make 
the beautiful-winged, though he is One, manifold by 
words." The circle narrows, and we read : " O Agni, 
many names are given thee, O god, immortal ruler." 

^ Hillebrandt calls this hymn the " riddle-hymn." It is still con- 
sidered obscure in many portions ; but as general comprehension of 
the Rig-Veda, both as to spirit and form, increases, it becomes more 
intelligible. Some of the riddles are most ingenious and quite easy. 
Such is the description of the Year as the " twelve-spoked wheel of 
Rita which circles round the heavens without the axle ever getting 
heated or the wood rotten, while 720 twin brothers keep climbing up 
on it " (360 days and as many nights). The riddles in which the in- 
evitable Cow and Calf are turned loose are among the hardest, be- 
cause these symbolical animals have come to mean anything and 
everything. 



COSMOGONY.— PHILOSOPHY. 435 

At last it closes, and it is announced : " Agni IS 
ALL THE GODS." Herewith we have the sought-for 
clue. 

For the Aryas of the Rig-Veda were — Fire- Wor- 
shippers.' 

After the stupendous collection has been subjected 
to every known process of analysis and disintegra- 
tion, this is the residue left in the crucible. So 
much will plainly appear even from the limited but 
carefully picked selection of hymns and detached 
passages in the present volume. 

13. From these it must have become clear long 
ago that the whole naturalism of the Rig-Veda, its 
entire conception of the universe and its working, 
hinges on two sets of natural phenomena : those of 
Light (Heat is included, though not specially men- 
tioned till late), and of Moisture, embodied in Agni 
and Soma. And we cannot perceive or compre- 
hend Agni's real nature so long as we persist in nar- 
rowing it down to the conception of Fire — one form 
of him only, and not the most divine. Agni is Light 
— the light which fills and pervades Space — which has 
its highest abode in that eternal, mysterious world 
above the heavens, beyond space itself, where are 
the hidden sources of all things — the Sanctuary, the 
Navel of the Universe, where Day and Night them- 
selves, the unequal, ever separated sisters, meet and 
kiss (L, 185, 5). From this supernal world Agni 

^ And probably the Indo-Eranian Aryas also. Not so the Zoroas- 
trians, to this day so mis-named. The very essence of Zarathushtra's 
reform consisted in transforming Fire- and Soma-worship into a 
symbolical act. 



43^ VEDIC INDIA. 

descends and manifests himself. He is " born " or 
" found " in the heavens as the Sun, in the atmos- 
phere as Lightning, on earth as Fire. These are his 
three visible Bodies or " forms." But he invisibly 
pervades, lies hidden in, all things. In the plants — 
or how could he be brought forth out of them ? In 
the Waters, — for out of the heavenly ocean the light- 
ning flashes, and with the rain he descends into the 
earth, thence mounts into the trees and herbs as sap, 
and lies concealed in them until brought forth by 
design or accident. In animals and men — for what 
but his divine presence accounts for the warmth in 
their bodies ? and that warmth is Life, for when it 
leaves the body, life goes. Soma himself is only 
Agni's other self, the liquid form of him, the hidden 
principle of life which makes of the moisture that 
pervades all nature, the invigorating ainrita, the 
Drink of Immortality, which keeps her forces living 
and ever young. As to the earthly Soma, the fer- 
mented and intoxicating sacrificial beverage, Agni's 
divine presence is trebly manifested in it : by the 
flame which the alcoholic liquid emits and feeds ; by 
the heat it diffuses through the veins of the partakers ; 
by the exhilaration, the fervid enthusiasm, nay the 
inspiration, which seizes on those who have tasted it, 
and makes them feel in direct communion with the 
god, makes them say that the god has entered into 
them and they have become as gods. In the form 
of Soma, it is Agni whom the worshipper receives 
into himself, for the two are One. ' It is Soma who, 

' See pp. 173-175 : " Soma who has entered into the Brahmans" 
(X., 14). 



cosMOGO^'y. — philosophy. 4^y 

from his bright bowl, the Moon, dispenses the gentle 
dews that feed the plants, but hidden in the dews 
— as in the rain, as in the clouds — Agni descends, for 
he is the Child of the Waters. Thus the ancient 
Aryas not only preceded the early Greek schools of 
philosophy in constructing a theory of the world, 
but greatly surpassed them in wisdom ; since, while 
some of the Greeks declared Water to be the ele- 
mentary principle of the world, and others Fire, the 
Vedic Aryas, by a marvel of intuition, had, ages be- 
fore, reached the perception that only in the union 
of both — of Heat and Moisture — lies the universal 
life-giving principle. 

14. All the Devas having to do with light, light- 
ning, fire, or rain, it is clear that, taking the stand 
just developed, it is quite possible to drive them to 
bay and expose them, as so many Vedic thinkers 
have done, as mere names — endowed with a fictitious 
individuality — to find the nonien (name) behind the 
niimen (deity), to use a phrase of Professor Max 
Miiller, which was a revelation in its day ; then we 
behold in them only so many Persons of Agni, in 
the word's original meaning of — Masks. ' No won- 
der that a riper age discarded them all as MayA — 
" illusion " and sought the One behind them. Only 
the stage of naturalism had then been passed, and 
the One was no longer Agni. 

15. The mysticism of the Rig- Veda has its source : 

' See M. Muller's Biograpliies of Words, III., " Persona." 
Originally " mask," then the aspect one presents, the face one puts 
on, the character one enacts. The " persons" of a deity may be de- 
fined as its different manifestations. 



438 VEDIC INDIA. 

1st, in the connection of Agni — as Brihaspati or 
Brahmanaspati — with the two great acts of worship, 
prayer and sacrifice ; 2d, in the behef in a supernal, 
hidden world, the source of light, and the " highest 
abode " of all divine beings ; 3d, in the kinship men 
claim with Agni, and owing to which that world is 
their " home, which cannot be taken from them (X., 
14), to which they are " restored " when they leave 
this world by " the path of death " by which the 
Ancient Fathers preceded them, whom they go to 
join in that Abode of Light. And who more meet 
to carry them thither " by the easiest paths " than 
Agni himself in his fiery form, the Messenger, the 
Priest?' This fully accounts for the substitution of 
cremation for the earlier rite of burial/ 

16. As religious mysticism develops into philo- 
sophical speculation, the same principle of Light- 
and-Heat in union with Moisture (the Waters) as the 
factor of Creation and the Supporter of the Worlds 
still holds good : the First-Born, the " first germ, 
containing all the gods," (powers of nature), from its 
resting-place on the lap of the Unborn, is received 
by the Waters (X., 82, 5-6), and it is heat {tdpas) that 
quickens it with the first stirrings of desire {kdma) 
(X., 129, 3-4). 

' " . . . This man's unborn part convey to the abode of the 
blessed. . . . Give up again, Agni, to the Fathers him who comes 
offered to thee with oblations. . . . " (X., 14.) 

^ That this was actually the idea, is proved by a notice in the 
A-itareya-Brahmana, which informs us that " formerly," at sacrifices, 
x!aG yupa or sacrificial post to which the victim had been bound used 
to be thrown into the fire after it, because it 7'ep7-esented the sacrificer , 
and thus placed him in communion with the gods — " sent him to the 
gods." 



COSMOGONY. — PHILOSOPHY. 439 

Agni, then — Light-and-Heat — is the Divine pre- 
existing and self-existing One, who (when manifested) 
fills and pervades the worlds, abides in and contains 
all things. 

In this way, in this sense, were the Aryas of India 
Fire-Worshippers. In this way, after repeatedly 
reaching out for Monotheism, they missed it at last 
and found instead Pantheism, which they held fast. 

And thus the transition from pure nature-worship 
to the transcendental metaphysical mysticism of 
Brahmanism is effected gradually, smoothly, within 
the Rig-Veda itself, and when we take up the story 
where the Rig- Veda drops it, we shall find in it no 
break, no abrupt turn from the " easy paths," along 
which we have been led so far. 

THE END. 




PRINCIPAL WORKS READ OR CONSULTED 

IN THE PREPARATION OF THE 

PRESENT VOLUME. 



Earth, A. The Religions of India. Translated from the French 

by Rev. J. Wood. London, 1882. I vol. 
Bergaigne, Abel. La Religion Vedique, d'apres les hymnes du 

Rig-Veda. Paris, 1878-1883. 3 vol, 
BOhler, G. Die Indischen Inschriften und das Alter der 

Indischen Kuntspoesie. (Sitzungsberich derKais. Akad. der 

Wissensch. in Wien, XI.) Wien, 1890. 
The Laws of Manu, translated, with extracts from seven 

Commentaries. (Vol. XXV. of the " Sacred Books of the East" 

Series.) Oxford, 1886. i vol. 
Chantepie de la Saussaye, p. D. Lehrbuch der Religions 

Geschichte, Erster Band, Freiburg, J. B. 1887. (Popular.) 
De Gubernatis, Angelo. Letture sopra la Mitologia Vedica. 

Firenze, 1874. i vol. 
La Mythologie des Plantes ; ou, Legendes du Regne 

Vegetal. Paris, 1878-1882. 2 vol. 
Zoological Mythology, or the Legends of Animals. Lon- 



don, 1872. 2 vol. 

Donner, Dr. O. Pindapitryajna, das Manenopfer mit Klossen 
bei den Indern. Abhandlung aus dem Vedischen Ritual. Ber- 
lin, 1870. 36 pp. 

Dowson, John. A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology 
and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature. London, 
Triibner's " Oriental Series," 1879. i vol. 

Duncker, Max. Geschichte des Alterthimis, vol. III. : Die Arier 
AM Indus und Ganges. Leipzig, 1879. 
441 



442 WORKS CONSULTE-D. 

Eggeling, Julius. The Satapatha-Brahmana, according to the 

text of the Madhyandina School. Part I., Books 1. and II. 

(Vol. XII. of the " Sacred Books of the East" Series.) Oxford, 

1882. I vol. 
Geldner, Karl, und Kaegi, Adolf. Siebenzig Lieder des Rig- 

VedA, iibersetzt von ; mit Beitragen von R. Roth. Tubingen, 

1875. 
Geldner und Pischel. Vedische Studien, I. and II. 
Grassmann, Hermann. Rig-Veda, iibersetzt. Leipzig, 1876-1 877. 

2 vol. 
Haug, Martin. The Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rig-Veda, 

edited, translated, and explained. Bombay, 1863. 2 vol. 
Hewitt, J. F. Notes on the Early History of Northern 

India, youmal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1888 and 1889. 
Hillebrandt, Alfred. Ueber die Gottin Aditi (vorwiegend im 

Rig- Veda). Breslau, 1876. 51 pp. 
Varuna und Mitra, ein Beitrag Zur Exegese des Veda. 

Breslau, 1877. 159 pp. 
Vedische Mythologie. Erster Band. Breslau, iSgi. 



Hunter, W. W. The Indian Empire : Its people, history, and 
products. Second edition. London, 1886. i vol. 

Jones, Sir William. Institutes of Hindu Law ; or. The Ordi- 
nances of Menu. Edition of 1869, London, i vol. 

Kaegi, Adolf. The Rig- Veda, the Oldest Literature of the Indians. 
(Translated by R. Arrowsmith, with additions to the Notes.) 
Boston, 1886. I vol. 

KuHN, Adalbert. Mythologische Studien. First vol. : Die 
Herabkunft des Feuers und des Gottertrankes. Gu- 
tersloh, 1886. (Second edition.) 

Lassen, Christian. Indische Alterthumskunde. London, 1866- 
1874. 2 vol. (Second edition.) 

Lefmann, Dr. S. Geschichte des Alten Indiens. (Oncken's 
Series " Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen.") Ber- 
lin, 1880. 

LuDwiG, Alfred. Die Nachrichten des Rig- und Atharva- 
Vedauber Geographie, Geschichte, Verfassung des Alten 
Indiens. (Abhandlungen der kon.-bohmisch. Gesellsch. der 
Wissensch. VI. Folge, 8 Band.) Prag, 1875. 58 pp. 

Die Philosophischen und Religiosen Anschauungen des 

Veda in ihrer Entwickelung. Prag, 1875. 58 pp. 



WORKS CONSULTED. 443 

Der Rigveda, oder die heiligen Hymnen der Brahmana. 

Prag, 1878. 5 vol. 
MuiR, J. Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and History 

of the People of India, their Religion and Institutions. Second 

edition. Paris, 1872-1884. 5 vol. 
:.!uLLER, F. Max. Ancient Sanskrit Literature, A History of. 

London, 1859. i vol. 
Science of Religion, Introduction to the. London, 1873. 

I vol. 
-Science of Language, Lectures on the. New York, 1875. 

(From the second London edition, revised.) 2 vol. 
Chips from a German Workshop, vol. I. and II. New 

York edition, 1876. 
Origin and Growth of Religion, Lectures on the ; as il- 
lustrated by the Religions of India. (Hibbert Lectures for 

1878.) I vol. 
Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas. 

London, 1888. i vol. 
India, What can it Teach us? New edition. London, 



18920 I vol. 
Myriantkeus, Dr. L. Die AgviNS, oder Arischen Dioskuren. 

Miinchen, 1876. 185 pp. 
Oldenberg, Hermann. The GrihyA-Suteas, Rules of Vedic 

Domestic Ceremonies, Part I. (" Sacred Books of the East" 

Series, vol. XXIX.) Oxford, 1887. i vol. 
Perry, Edward Delavan (of Columbia College). Indra in the 

Rig-Veda. {yonrn. of the Amer. Or. Soc, 1880.) 92 pp. 
Roth, Rudolph. ZuR Litteratur und Geschichte des Weda. 

Stuttgart, 1846. 148 pp. 
Scherman, Dr. Lucian. Philosophische Hymnen aus der Rig- 

UND Atharva-VedA-Sanhita verglichen mit den Philosophe- 

men der alteren Upanishads. Strassburg and London, 1887. 

g6 pages. 
SCHROEDER, Dr. Leopold v. Indiens Literatur und Kultur in 

historischer Entwicklung. Leipzig, 1887. I vol. (Popular.) 
St. Martin, Vivien de. Etude sur la Geographie du Veda. 

Paris, i860. I vol. 
Wailis, H. W. The Cosmogony of the Rig-Veda. London, 

1887. I vol. 



444 WORKS CONSULTED, 

Weber, Albrecht. History of Indian Literature. London, 

1878, I vol. 
Indische Skizzen. Vier bisher in Zeitschriften Zerstreute 

Vortrage und Abhandlungen. Berlin, 1857. 
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Gebiete der Indischen Philologie, seit dem Jahre 1849. 
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dischen Geschichte, mit Rucksicht auf die Litteratur. Bres- 

lau, 1862. 93 pp. 
Williams, Monier. Religious Thought and Life in India. 

Tvondon, 1883. 

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Wilson, Horace Hayman. Select Specimens of the Theatre 

OF the Hindus. London, 1871. 2 vol. 
WuRM, Paul, Geschichte der Indischen Religion, im Umriss 

dargestelt. Basel, 1874. i vol. (Popular.) 
ZiMMER, Heinrich. Altindisches Leben ; die Cultur der Vedischen 

Arier nach den Samhita dargestellt. Berlin, 1879. ^ '^^• 

Numerous pamphlets and essays in the Zeitschrift der Deufschen 
Morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, the yournal of the Royal Asiatic 
Society, the Proceedings and yournal of the Atnerican Oriental 
Society, the Victoria Institute, and other special periodicals, 
and the Encyclopcedia Britannica. Also works and papers bear- 
ing on the subject more or less remotely, and such as would not 
be of much use to students. The works and sources which, 
though consulted, are to be used specially in connection with 
the next following volume on Brahmanic India, are not men- 
tioned here. 

Oldenberg's new book. Die Religion des Veda, Berlin, 1894, 
was not received in New York in time to be utilized in the 
present volume. 

Z. A. R. 




INDEX. 



Aboriginal tribes, savage, of the 
present clay, 299, 300 

Abu, Mount, 16 

Aditi, mother of the Adityas ; 
nature of, 1 51-153 ; " The 

^ Infinite," 153, 154 

Adityas, sons of Aditi, 151 ; 
meaning of the name, 154 ; 
their number and nature, 155 ; 
affinity between them and the 
Amesha-Spentas of the Avesta, 
i55,^«tf/'^ 

Agnayi, wife of Agni, a pale ab- 
straction, 265 

Agni — Fire ; naturalistic descrip- 
tion of , 156, 157 ; the friend of 
men, 157, 158 ; the Sacrificial 
Fire, 158 ; the divine priest, 
159 ; birth of (from the ara/ii or 
fire-drill), 160 ; as Siirya, the 
Sun, 161 ; Apam-N'apctt^ " Son 
of the Waters," 161, 162 ; de- 
scent of, in rain, 162 ; three 
abodes of, 163 ; " finding" and 
"bringing" of, 164; his kin- 
ship with men, 166 ; funeral 
form of, 167 ; invoked at 
funerals, 358, 360 ; hotar and 
puro/iiia, 398-400 ; identified 
with all the gods, 433-435 ; 
One with Soma, 436 ; the 
One divine essence of the Uni- 
verse, 435-439 



Agnihotras, the three daily 

sacrifices, 15S 
" Agni-Purana " ; Flood legend 

in, 335, 344 

Ahi, the cloud-serpent, a drought- 
fiend, pierced by Indra, 195 

A Intra, Eranian equivalent of 
Vedic Asura, name of God in 
the Avesta, 138 

" Aitareya Brahmana," the ; 
legend of Shunahshepha in, 
410-413 

Aja, " the Unborn " (sometimes 
Aja Ekapdd), the pre-existing 
One, 423-425 

Aja Ekapdd, see Aja. 

Akesinos, Greek name of the 
Tchenab. 

Almsgiving, praise of, 374, 375 

Amesha-Spentas in the ^Avesta 
partly answer to the Adityas, 
155, note 

Amrita, the drink of immortal- 
ity, 175 ; churning of the, as 
told in the Mahabharata, 187- 
190 

Ananta, the Serpent, 342 

Angiras, the ; a mythical priestly 
race, connected with the wor- 
ship of Agni, 165; actors in the 
storm-myth of Sarama and the 
Panis, 256-258, 261, 364, 365 

Animals of India, 35-44 

Animism, a conspicuous feature 
of the Rig-Veda, 132 



445 



446 



INDEX. 



Anquetil Duperron, on India's 
giant trees, 30 

Antariksha, " Middle-Region "; 
see Atmosphere. 

Anu, the, one of the " Five 
Tribes," 323 

Apas, see Waters. 

Apsaras, Water-Maidens, 213 

A rani, the fire-drill, 159, 160 

"Aranyaka," appendices to some 
Brahmanas, 122 

Aranyani, the genius of the 
forest 272 

Ariaka, the Aryan snake-god. 

Aryas, prehistoric ; reconstruc- 
tion of their life, 51-56 ; their 
primeval home uncertain, 74— 
76 ; of India, separated from 
the Indo-Eranians, 104 ; de- 
scend into the Penjab, 106 ; 
their mode of life in the Pen- 
jab, 108-112 ; their long con- 
flict with the natives, I13 ; 

" and Dasyus " (Aryas and 

natives), the division of races 
in the Rig-Veda, and the 
origin of caste, 282, 284, 285 ; 
their conquests not all by war, 
314 ; partly by missionaiy 
work, 315-318 

Aryaman, one of the Adityas, 

.155 

Aryd-varfa, ancient name of 
Hindustan, 334 

Ashoka, his rock inscriptions, 56 

Ashvamedha, see Horse - sacri- 
fice. 

Ashvattha, see Ficus Religiosa. 

Ashvins, the, Morning Twilight 
Twins, 229, 233 ; their numer- 
ous functions and pursuits, 233- 
235 ; birth-myth of, 252-256 

Ashvini, wife of the Ashvins, a 
pale abstraction, 265 

Asikni, Vedic name of the 
Tchenab. 

Assam, not included in the 
present work, 2 ; native land 
of tea, 31, 7iote 

Asura, originally the Aryan title 



of beneficent beings, later 
transferred to evil beings, 
demons or fiends, 138 {see 
Ahura)\ 401, note; — the "an- 
cient gods," 401 

Atharva-Veda, the fourth Veda, 
incorporated late, different 
from the other three, 11 7-1 19 

Atharvan, a mythical priest, who 
" kindled Agni " ; etymologi- 
cal affinities of the name, 165 

Atharvaiis, a class of priests, ib. 

Atman, the Self, the Soul of the 
world, 422 

Atmosphere, the third world, 
ruled by Varuna, 144 ; scene 
of the Storm-Drama, 191 

Avatar (incarnation of Vishnu) ; 
third — Tortoise, 189 ; see ill. 
17 ; sixth — I'arashu - Rama, 
278, note ; see ill. 18 ; first — 
Fish (Matsya), 341, 342, 344 ; 
see ill. 30 

B 

Bamboo, 30-32 

Banana, {Pisang, Musa Sapien- 

tunt), 32 
Banyan, see Ficus Indica. 
Battle of the Ten Kings, on the 

Parushni, 332 
Bias, or Viyas, modern name of 

one of the " Five Rivers," 

108, note (see Vipasa, Hypasis, 

Hypanis, Vipasis). 
Bhaga, one of the Adityas, 155 
" Bhagavata Purana," 335 ; 

Flood legend in, 343, 344 
Bharatas, a powerful native 

tribe, probably converted by 

Vishvamitra ; hostile to the 

Tritsu, 319, 328 
Bholan Pass, 4 

Bhrigus, a anythical race, " find- 
ers" of Agni, 164, 364, and 

note, 364 
Bogh, Slavic name for "god" 

and (the one) God, 155 
Bombay, ceded to England by 

Portugal, 79 



INDEX. 



M7 



Brahma, prayer, in the form of 
sacred'texts, 261 ; (neuter) the 
all-pervading presence and 
essence in later philosophy, 
latent and quiescent, 262 

Brahma (masculine), the mani- 
fested Brahma (neuter) ; the 
Creator ; the head of the Brah- 
manic Triad, 262 ; produces 
the Castes from his body, 281 

" Brahmanas," theological treat- 
ises, commentaries on the dif- 
ferent Vedas, 120-122 

Brahmanaspati, or Brihaspati, 
" Lord of Prayer," 247 ; In- 
dra's companion in the storm- 
myth of Sarama and the Panis, 
256-258; the sacrificial fire, the 
sacerdotal form of Agni, 261 

Brahmans, the privileged priest- 
hood, 116; the highest caste 
in post-vedic times, 274-279 ; 
their extravagant claims as set 
forth in the Laws of Manu, 276 

Brahmaputra, 8, 9 

jBrakmd-vaj-la, the holy land of 
Brahmanic India, 333, 334 

Brihaspati, see Brahmanaspati. 

Burma, not included in the pres- 
ent work, 2 



Caste {vama), 274—281 ; origin- 
ally founded on difference of 
race, 282, and of color, 283 

Castes, the four, 274 ; as defined 
in the Laws of Manu, 275- 
279; the three " twice-born " 
[dvJ-Ja), 279 ; mentioned only 
once in the Rig-Veda, 280, 281 

Ceylon, Isle of, description of, 

45-47 

Chaldea, connection of, with the 
Dravidians of India before the 
coming of the Aryas, 305-3 11 

Chaldean Flood legend com- 
pared with the same in India, 

335. 339. 340, 343, 344-34^ 
Chhandas (Metre), one of the 
Vedangas, 125 



Classification, its drawbacks and 
advantages, 237-240 

Clive, Lord, defeats the French 
East India Company, 80 

Clouds ; their many mythical 
uses : milch-kine, 193 ; moun- 
tains and castles, 194 ; drought- 
fiends, 195 

Colebrooke, greatest of early 
Sanskrit scholars, 58 ; his prin- 
cipal works, 99, 100 

Comparative Mythology, a new 
science ; its achievements and 
its errors, 301-303 

Cosmogonic questions, 415 ; 
speculations, 416 _^. 

Cotton, 33, note 

Cow, the, sacredness of, 192 ; 
the mythical cloud, 193 ; the 
bright, of Light ; the black, of 
Darkness, 227 ; the Dawn as, 
ib. symbolism of : Vach 
(Prayer), the divine — , 272 ; Va- 
sishtha's syml)ol of Brahmanic 
Sacrifice, see ill. 18 

Culture, general sketch of, 349 ; 
characteristic pictures of, 374- 
381 

Cursing of Dasyus, 378, 379 



D 



Daevas, Eranian equivalent of 
Vedic Devas ; stands for 
demons, fiends, in the Avesta, 
138 

Ddkyu, Eranian form of " Das- 
yu," its meaning in the Avesta 
and the Akhsemenian inscrip- 
tions, 113, note 

Daityas, a race of giants, 343 

Dakshina, liberality, largess to 
priests, 264 ; 383-386 ; on what 
grounds claimed and bestowed, 
386, 387 ; the heavenly — be- 
stowed by the Devas on sacri- 
ficers, 393 

Ddsnpaiiiis, " Wives of the 
Demons," 265 

Dasyus {see Ddhytc), natives, com- 



448 



INDEX. 



bated and abhorred by the Ar- 
yas, 113 ; " Aryas and — ," the 
division of races in the Rig- 
Veda and the origin of Caste, 
282 ; came to mean " enemies " 
and " demons, fiends," then 
" slaves, servants," 283, 284 ; 
not one race or nation, but 
many tribes belonging to va- 
rious races, 285-287 ; cursed 
by Vasishtha, 378, 379 

Death and future life, concep- 
tions of , 350, 359-361 ; for the 
wicked, 361, 362 ; how trans- 
formed in time, 362, 363 

Dekhan, definition of, 3 ; gen- 
eral description, 18-20 

Deodar, see Teak. 

Deus, Dio, Dios, Dieu — God ; 
the words whence derived, 137 

Devas — gods ; meaning of the 
word ; whence derived, 137, 
138 ; how created, 139, 140 
{see Daevas) 

Divaddru, see Teak. 

Devapatnis, " Wives of the 
gods," 265 

" Dharma-Shastras " Wncient 
\ codes of 

" Dharma-Sutras " ) law, 94 

Dies-piter, Latin equivalent of 
Vedic Dyaushpitar, 137 

Divodasa, tribal hero of the 
Tritsu, 323 ; his wars with the 
mountain tribes, 323, 324 

Djumna, see Yamuna. 

'>ogs_, 35, 36 

Dravidians, one of the races 
whom the Aryas found in pos- 
session, 287, 288 ; their char- 
acteristics, 292 ; their Earth- 
and-Serpent worship, 293 ; had 
human sacrifices, 296 ; their 
connection with Chaldea be- 
fore the coming of the Aryas, 
305-311 ; were of Turanian 
stock, 308 

Dupleix, director of the French 
East India Company, defeated 
by Lord Clive, 80 



Dzii-Ja, "twice-born"; mean- 
ing of the word, 279 

Dyaus — Heaven, the Sky — the 
oldest Aryan deity, 137, 138 

Dyaushpitar, " Dyaus the Fath- 
er," 137 



East India Company, English, 
establishment of, 77 

East India Company, Dutch, 79, 
80 

East India Company, French ; 
its rivalry with the English 
Company and its final defeat, 
80, 81 

East India Company, Portu- 
guese ; cruelty and rapacity of, 
78, 79 

Ekam, " the One," see Aja. 

Elephants, 36 ; of Ceylon, 46 



Famines, 13-15 

Festival of Serpents, 294 {see ill. 
22) 

Ficzis Indica (banyan), descrip- 
tion of, 24-29 

Fictis Reiigiosa {Ashvatt/ia, Pip- 
paid), description of, 29, 30 ; 
fed on by the finest variety of 
silk-worms, 42 ; Arani made 
of, 160 

Fire-Worship, the clue to the 
Rig-Veda, 435-439 

"First-Born," the, forms of: 
Vishvakarman, 425, 431 ; Hir- 
anyagarbha, 431, 432 ; Praja- 
pati, 433 

" Five Tribes, or " Five Races,'.' 
the, 323 

Flood legend, the, in India, 310, 
335-348 ; in the Shatapatha 
Brahmana, 335-337 ; in the 
Mahabharata, 337-340 ; in the 
Matsya-Purana, 340-342 ; in 
the Bhagavata Purana, 3,13, 
3.:]4 ; traces of, in folk-lore, 
348 ; compared with the Chal- 



INDEX. 



449 



dean legend and the Biblical 
account, 335, 339, 340, 343, 

^ 344-346 

P'orests, 20 ; destruction of, and 
its evil effects, 20-23 

Funeral ritual, 349-359 ; origi- 
nally burial, 351-353; changed 
to cremation, 353-359 



G 



Gambling, a leading vice of the 
Aryan race, 375 ; vivid de- 
scription of, 376-377 ; cheating 
at, 377 

Gandharas, a people of the Kabul 
valley, 324 

Ganga, see Ganges. 

Ganges (Ganga), 8 ; mentioned 
only once in the Rig-Veda, 267 

Gdyatri, the, the holiest text in 
the Rig- Veda, 241 ; possibly a 
confession of faith for converts, 
316-318 

Gharghar, modern name of the 
Lower Sarasvati. 

Ghats, Western and Eastern, 18 

Goddesses, few and insignificant, 
265 

Gods, see Devas. 

Gondhs, one of the chief Dra- 
vidian tribes of the present 
day, 296 

" Grihya-Siitras," rules for the 
conduct of life, 94 

Grimm, Jacob, philological law 
discovered by him, 59 

Guru, a spiritual instructor, suc- 
cessor of the ancient ^uro /it ta, 
316 

H 

Haoma, Eranian equivalent of 

Soma, 169 
Hapta-Hendu, Eranian form of 

Sapta-Sindhavah ; Avestan and 

Persian name of the I'enjab, 

108 
Haraqaiti , Eranian equivalent of 

" Sarasvati," 268 

29 



Harishchandra, King, see Story 

of Shunahshepha, 410-413 
Harits, usually seven, the steeds 

or mares of the Sun, the Dawn, 

Indra, Agni, etc., 217 
Hastings, Warren, patron of first 

Sanskrit scholars, 57, 81, 82 
Hayagriva, a demon, 343 
Helmend, the Eranian Haraqaiti, 

268 
Henotheism (or Kathenotheism), 

worship of one god at a time, 

430 
Herb-doctor's song, 380 
Himalaya, general description of, 

3-9 ; its meteorological influ- 
ence on India, 9-12 ; its aver- 
age height, 15 
Himavat, " Abode of Winter," 

see Himalaya. 
Hindu-Kush, mountain passes 

in, 4 
Hindustan, definition of, 3 
Hiranyagarbha, " the Golden 

Embryo," 264, 431, 432 
History in the Rig-Veda, 303, 

304, 322 
Horse-sacrifice (ashvamedha), 

in the Rig- Veda, 403-406 ; 

symbolism of, 403-405 
/r(7/«r (priest), Agni as, 159 
Human sacrifices (purushamed- 

ha), in the Rig-Veda, 406-413 
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, one of 

the early pillars of Sanskrit 

scholarship, 92 
Hydaspes, Greek name of the 

Jhelum. 
Hydraotes, Greek name of the 

Ravi. 
Hypasis, Hypanis,Vipasis, Greek 

names of the Bias. 



Ida, spiritual daughter of Manu, 

337 
Identification of gods with one 
another, 430, 431 ; of all the 
gods with Agni, 433-435 



450 



INDEX. 



Idolatry, Vedic religion free 

from, 133 
India, general view and extent, 

1-3 

Indo-Eranian period, 49, 104 

Indra, the Thunderer, 191 ; the 
hero of the Atmospheric Battle- 
drama, the Aryan war-god, 
196, 197, 199 ; his inordinate 
craving for Soma, 198, 199 ; 
the friend of men and the dis- 
penser of wealth, 199-202 ; his 
rivalry with Varana, 202, 203 ; 
his stormy infancy, 204 ; his 
dispute with the Maruts, 211 ; 
his relations to Surya, 218, 
219 ; to Ushas, 220, 221 ; 
Tvashtar's son, 251 ; in the 
myth of Sarama and the Panis, 
256-259 

Indrani, the wife of Indra, a pale 
abstraction, 265 

Indus (see Sindhu, Sindh), 8 

Iravati, Epic name of the Ravi. 

Iroti, see Ravi. 

Itihdsas, legendary poems, 94 



yandrdana, a surname of Vishnu, 

341 
Jhelum, modern name of one of 

the " Five Rivers," 107, note ; 

{see Vitasta and Hydaspes). 
Jones, Sir "William, translator of 

the Laws of Manu, 57 ; founder 

of the Bengal Asiatic Society, 

83 ; his work in the field of 

Sanskrit studies, 83, 84, loo ; 

his accidental discovery of the 

Hindu drama, 84-87 
Jupiter, see Dies-piter. 
yyotisha (Astronomy), one of the 

Vedangas, 125 

K 

Kalidasa, the " Hindu Shake- 
speare," 88 

Kalpa (Ceremonial), one of the 
Vedangas, 125 



Kandhs, one of the chief Dra- 
vidian tribes of the present 
day, 296 

Kathenotheism, see Henotheism. 

Kavyas, short epic poems, 95 

Khaibar Pass, 4 

Kolarians, one of the races whom 
the Aryas found in possession, 
287, 288 ; their characteristics, 
290-292 

Kshatriyas or Rajanyas, the War- 
rior Caste, 274 ; defined in the 
Laws of Manu, 275 ; their 
struggle with the Brahmans 
and extermination, 278, note 

Kuram Pass, 4 

Kuru, later name of the Puru, 

333 
Kutsa the Puru, see Purukutsa. 
Kuvera, the god of wealth, 8 



Language no test of race, 31 1, 
312 ; but exerts racial and 
moral influence, 313 

Lions, 38 

M 

Magic, little used in the Rig- 
Veda, 373, 379 

" Mahabharata," the greater of 
the two Hindu epics, 92 ; the 
Flood I>egend in, 338-340 

" Manava-Dharma-Shastra," 
" Institute of Manu," 94 

Mandalas "books" into which 
the Rig-Veda is divided, 115 

Mandara, mountain, 188 

Mantra (Eranian Manthra), 
" hymns, sacred texts," 114 

Manu, Man, " the human race," 
164 ; the progenitor of the 
human race, 184 ; son of 
Vivasvat, il>. and 255 ; the 
hero of the Flood Legend in 
India, 336-342 

Mainis/iya, one of the names for 
" Man," 184 



INDEX. 



451 



Manyus, " Wrath," a deified 

abstraction, 264 
Marriage, 367-373 ; sacredness 

of, typified by the mythical 

marriage of Soma and Surya, 

368-370 
Martya "mortal," a name for 

" man," 184 
Marudvriddha, Vedic name of 

the Tchandrabhaga. 
Maruts, the, Storm-Winds, 191 ; 

Indra's companions in the 

Atmospheric Battle, 196, 197 ; 

their characteristics, 210; their 

dispute with Indra, 210 
Matarishvan, the "bringer" of 

Agni, 164, 170, 254 
" Matsya (Fish) Purana," the ; 

Flood Legend in, 340-342 
Medha " sacrificial virtue," 

legend about, 409 
Minerals of India, 44, 45 
Mithra, the Eranian equivalent 

of the Vedic Mitra, 149 
Mitra, a god of Light, invoked 

joinrty with Varuna, 149, 150 ; 

an Aditya, 151 
Monotheism, tendency to, dimly 

perceptible in the Rig-Veda, 

132, 429 ; missed at last, 430, 

439 

Monsoons, 10 

Moon, the, Soma, the fount of 
amrita, 177 

Moon-worship in the Rig-Veda, 
178-180 

Mrityu, Death personified, 351 

Musa Sapientum , see Banana. 

Mysticism in the Rig-Veda, 437, 
438 

Myths, definition of the word, 
135 ; primeval Aryan, in the 
Rig-Veda, ib.; nature — spirit- 
ualized and transformed into 
abstractions, 259, 260 

N 

Nadisttiti, " River-hymn," a 
valuable geographical docu- 
ment, 266 



Ndgas, snakes ; also, a mythical 
snake-people, 294 

Ndraka, a " hell-world," 363 

Naturalism, principal character- 
istic of the Rig-Veda, 133, 134 

Night, the sister of the Dawn, 
225 

Nirukia (Etymology), one of the 
Vedangas, 125 



Panini, author of the monumental 
Sanskrit grammar, 130, 'note 

Pan is, the, a mythical robber- 
tribe ; myth of, and Sarama, 
256-259 

Pantchanada, brings to the Indus 
the united waters of the ' ' Five 
Rivers," 106 ; see Penjab. 

Pantheism, not monotheism, 
achieved by the Rig- Veda, 435 

-439 

Parallelism between the Aryas of 
India and the Eranians, 48-50, 
104, 132, 138, 139, 155, note ; 
429, note ; 435, note 

Parashu-Rama, the exterminator 
of the Kshatriyas ; sixth incar- 
nation {avatar) of Vishnu, 278, 
note ; see ill. 18 

Parjanya, the god of the thunder- 
storm, probably the Monsoon, 
205-208 

Parsu, the (a Persian tribe), allies 
of the Tritsu in the War of 
the Ten Kings, 328 

Parushni, or Purushni, Vedic name 
of the Ravi. 

Patala, modern Hyderabad, an 
ancient Dravidian city, 308 

Penjab (Pantchanada, Sapta- 
Sindhavah), first portion of In- 
dia settled by Aryas, 106 ; geo- 
graphical description of, ib.; 
its rivers, io6-iog 

Periods of Vedic literature, 129 

Phida-Pitriyajiia, " cake obla- 
tion to the Fathers," 366 

Pippala, see Ficus Religiosa. 



452 



INDEX. 



Pisang, see Banana. 

Pitris — Fathers — spirits of the 
dead, drink Soma from the 
Moon, 177 ; live in bliss with 
Yama, 182 ; and receive there 
their descendants who join 
them after death, 356, 357, 
360 ; the various classes of, 
363-367 ; actors in the celes- 
tial sacrifice, 398 

Poetry, Hindu, characteristics of, 

92, 93 

Polytheism, embodied in the 
Rig-Veda, 132 

Population of India, great variety 
of the, 313 

Prajapati, " Lord of Creatures," 
an epithet of Savitar, 245 ; of 
Soma, Indra, Vishvakarman, 
263 ; becomes an abstraction 
and a separate deity, ib.; iden- 
tified with Hiranyagarbha, 

432/ 

Pramantha (churhing-stick), 189 

Prishni, the Cloud-Cow, mother 
of the Maruts, 209 

Prithivi, Earth, the Mother, 136 

Prithu, the (a Parthian tribe), 
allies of the Tritsu in the War 
of the Ten Kings, 328 

" Puranas," — " Tales of Eld" ; 
their number and subject-mat- 
ter, 95 

Purohitas, family and tribal 
priests and national bards, 
315 ; their religious and polit- 
ical influence, and their mis- 
sionary work, 315, 316 ; their 
great usefulness, 387, 396 

Puru, the, one of the "Five 
Tribes," 323 ; usually allies 
of the Tritsu, 324, 325 ; turn 
against them, 325 ; head the 
confederacy of the Ten Kings, 
327 ; are beaten on the Pa- 
rushni, 332 ; change their name 
to Kuru, 333 

Purukutsa (Kutsathe Puru), King 
of the Puru, 323 ; ally of the 
Tritsu, 325 ; then head of the 



confederacy against them, 326, 
327 ; beaten on the Parushni, 
332 
Purukutsi, daughter of Puru- 
kutsa, mother of Trasadasyu, 

333 

Purusha, the primeval Male or 
giant ; the castes produced 
from his body, 280, 419-421 

Purushamedha, see " Human 
sacrifices." 

" Purusha-Siikta," — " Purusha- 
hymn," 280, 4 18-42 1 

Pushan, a solar deity, of rural 
character, 235, 236; the guide 
of the dead, 348, and note ; at 
the Horse-sacrifice, 405, and 
7iote 

R 

Race after gain, 381 

Rainfall, 11-13 

Rajanyas, see Kshatriyas. 

Rakshasas, the cannibal wizard 
demons of epic poetry, 298 

" Ramayana," the ; one of the 
two great Hindu epics, 92 ; 
the subject-matter of, 298 

Ravi or Iroti, modern names of 
the " Five Rivers," 108, 7iote. 
{See Parushni, Iravati, Hy- 
draotes.) 

Ribhus, the ; myth of, 247-250 

Rig-Veda, the ; (full title : Rig- 
Veda-Samhita) the most sacred 
and oldest Aryan book, 114; 
minute study of, and memoriz- 
ing, 119, 120; becomes obscure 
and calls for commentaries, 120, 
121 ; complicated character of, 
131-133 ; principally natural- 
ism, 133-136 ; history in, 303, 
304, 322 ; Fire-Worship, the 
clue to, 435-439 ; Pantheism 
its highest achievement, 439 

Rishis, ancient poet-priests, 
founders of illustrious and 
powerful priestly families, 115 

Rita, definition of, 146 ; Varuna, 
the keeper of, 147 ; sacrificial. 



INDEX. 



453 



391 > 395 ; becomes "rite," 392 ; 
etymological meaning of — , 
391, note 
Rohita, son of Harishchandra, see 
story of Shunahshepha, 410- 

413 
Roots, philological meaning of 

the word, with illustrations, 

60-62 
Rudra, the Stormy Sky, father of 

the Maruts, " the Terrible," 

209 ; the Shiva of the Brah- 

manic triad, 240 



Sacrifice — Yajnaj its importance 
in Aryan life, 382 ; compelling 
force of, 387, 393—395 ; a sort 
of spell, 388 ; an imitation of 
the phenomena of Light and 
Rain, 389-393 ; the " warp" or 
"chain" of, 396 ; celestial — a 
counterpart of terrestrial — , 396 
-398 ; identity of the two, 399 ; 
by whom offered, 398, 399 ; to 
whom, 400, 401 ; " supreme 
essence " of, 402 ; Soma — , 402, 
403; Horse — {ashvamedhd), 
403-406 ; human — {^purusha- 
medka), among the Dravidians, 
296 ; among the Aryas, 409- 

^413 
Sama-Veda, the third Veda, 116 
Sainhitd, "collection," 114 
Samraj, " King of Kings," 

highest royal title, 333 
Satmidra, " gathering of waters," 
name probably given to the 
Indus at its junction with the 
Pantchanada ; later a name of 
the sea ; also the celestial 
cloud-ocean, 107, 162, 268, 
jioie ; the vat into which Soma 
flows when pressed at sacrifices, 

394, 398 
Sandrophagos, Greek name of 

the Tchandrabhaga. 
Sanskrit, beginning of studies, 

and first results, 57-59 ; words 



traced through the various 
Aryan languages, ancient and 
modern, 60-74 J minor litera- 
ture, 96 ; second stage of 
studies, 96-102 

Santals, the chief Kolarian tribe 
of the present day, 290 

Sapta-Suidliavah, " The Seven 
Rivers," Vedic name of the 
Penjab ; its meaning, 108 (see 
Hapta Hendu). 

Sarama, myth of, and the Pariis ; 
a storm-myth, 256-259 ; spirit- 
ualized, — personification of 
Prayer, 262 

Sarameya dogs, Yama's messen- 
gers, 182 ; children of Sarama, 
256, 259 ; at funerals, 357 

Saranyu, daughter of Tvashtar, 
wife of Vivasvat, mother of 
Yama and the Ashvins ; prob- 
ably "the fleet Night," 252- 
256 

Sarasvati (modern Sarsuti and 
Gharghar), the seventh and 
easternmost river of the Sapta- 
Sindhavah, 108, 109 ; — river- 
goddess, 267 ; probably at one 
time Sindhu, the Indus, 268 ; 
in still earlier times the Eran- 
ian Haraqaiti, modern Hel- 
mend, ib. ; goddess of elo- 
quence and sacred poetry, 269 

Sarsuti, modern name of the 
Upper Sarasvati. 

Satyavrata, the hero of the Flood 
legend in the Bhagavata 
Purana, 343 

Savitar, sun-god, god of the 
Evening, 241-244 ; spiritual 
aspect of, 244-246 ; probable 
identity of, with Tvashtar, 246, 
249 

Sayana, author of the standard 
commentary oil the Rig Veda, 
129-130 

Schlegel, Friedrich Wilhelm von, 
one of the early pillars of San- 
skrit scholarship, 92 

Serpent, Dravidian syl^^bol of 



454 



INDEX. 



Earth, 293 ; probably fre- 
quently symbolical of the 
Dravidian Earth-worship in 
the Rig-Veda,^/<^. ; adopted in 
time by the Aryas, 294 ; the 
sacred symbol of most Turan- 
ian races, 308-310 

" Shakuntala,the Ring of, "drama 
by Kalidasa, accidentally dis- 
covered and translated by Sir 
William Jones, 84, 85 

Shambara, a mountain chieftain 
at war with the Tritsu, 323 

" Shastras," ji^^Dharma-Shastras. 

" Shatapatha Brahmana," the ; 
Deluge Legend in, 335-337 ; 
on human sacrifices, 40S ; 
legend in, on the suppression 
of bloody sacrifice, 409 

Sheep, as beast of burden, 36 

Shesh or Sheshna (also Vasuki), 
King of Serpents, 189 ; the 
Dravidian Snake god, symbol 
of the Earth-worship, 293 

Sheshna, see Shesh and Vasuki. 

Shishna-devas, Dravidian Snake- 
worshippers, 293 

Shiva, the ; see Tugra. 

Shiva, the, "Destroyer" of the 
Brahmanic triad, developed 
from Rudra, 239 

Shraddha, " Faith, " a deified 
abstraction, 264 ; commemora- 
tive rite in honor of the dead, 
359. 365, 366 

" Shrauta-Sutras," treat of mat- 
ters connected with Shruti — 
revelation, 127 

Shruti^ " revealed " sacred liter- 
ature, 122-124, 127 

Shiidras, the Menial class ; the 
fourth caste, 274 ; defined in 
the Laws of Manu, 276 ; for- 
bidden the study of the Veda, 
279 

Shunahshepha, legend of, 409- 

413 
Shushna, the Drought-demon. 
Shutudri or Shatadru, Vedic 

name of the Sutledj, 108, note 



Siam, not included in the present 
work, 2 

Sikshd (Phonetics), one of the 
Vedangas, 125 

Silk-worms, 42 

Sindhu, Sindh, ancient name of 
the Indus ; its meaning, 100, 
and note 

" Smarta-Sutras," treat of mat- 
ters connected with sacred 
traditions, 127 

Smriti, sacred tradition, 123 ; 
what it embraces, J2^ff. 

Snakes, profusion of, and de- 
struction of life by, 40 

Soma, the Eranian Haonia ; in- 
timate connection of, with 
Agni, 168 ; the plant, the 
trade with, 170, 171; — the 
pressing of, 1 71-173 ; the 
sacrificial beverage and its 
exhilarating effects, 174 ; the 
heavenly — amrita, the drink 
of immortality, 175 ; — the 
Moon, 177-180 ; mythical 
marriage of — with Surya sym- 
bolical of human marriages, 
368-370; — sacrifice, 402, 403 ; 
One with Agni, 436 

Sudas, King of the Tritsu, son 
(or grandson) of Divodasa. 
continues the Aryan conquest, 
324 ; his victory over the Con- 
federacy of the Ten Kings on 
the Parushni, 332 

Sugar-cane, 33, note 

Suleiman Mountains, passesin,4 

Sun-and-Dawn Drama ; plot, in- 
cidents of , and actors, 212-215 

Surya, the Sun, a form of Agni, 
161 ; the Sun-god, 215-218 ; 
his relations to Indra, 218, 
219 

Surya, the Sun-maiden (Dawn), 
daughter of Savitar, her mythi- 
cal marriage with Soma sym- 
bolical of human marriages, 
368-370 

Sutledj, modern name of the 
largest of the " Five Rivers," 



INDEX. 



455 



8, 9, 107, note ; {see Shutudn, 

Shatadru, Zadadres). 
Sutras, collections of short niles 

and aphorisms, 126 
Suttee^ " widow-burning," no 

authority for, in the Rig- Veda, 

70-72, 352, tiote 
6't/rt;-^«-/i7/^rt:, the " heaven- world " 

of the blessed dead, 361 



Taittiriya-Samhita, " the Black 
Yaju," a part of the Yajur- 
Veda, 117 

Tdla, a " hell-world," 363 

Tea, a native of Assam, 31, 7iote j 
Chinese legend about, ib. 

Teak (deodar, deva ddru), 23, 24 

Tchandrabhaga, Sanskrit and 
modern name of the river 
formed by the junction of the 
Jhelum and the Tchenab, 107, 
note ; {see Marudvriddha and 
Sandrophagos). 

Tchenab, modern name of one 
of the " Five Rivers," 107, 
note; {see Asikni and Ake- 
sinos). 

Theatre, Hindu, 86-88 ; its 
affinities with the Greek and 
the Elizabethan drama, 86, 87; 
its golden age, 88 ; its sources 
the same as those of classical 
and European mythical legend, 
88-92 

Tigers, 38 ; destruction of life 

by, 39, 40 
Trasadasyu, powerful king of the 

Puru, grandson of Purukutsa, 

friend of tlje Aryas, 333 
" Traividya," "the threefold 

Veda," 117 
Trees, remarkable, of India, 23- 

33 
Tritsu, the ; the leading and 
purest Aryan tribe ; one of the 
"Five Tribes," 319, 323; 
their power and their wars, 
323-326 ; their allies in the 



War of the Ten Kings, 328 ; 

their victory on the Parushni, 

332 
Tugra, the ; a Dravidian people, 

allies of the Tritsu in the War 

of the Ten Kings, 328 
Turvasu, one of the " Five 

Tribes," 323, 324 
Tvashtar, probable original iden- 
tity of, with Savitar, 246, 249 ; 

the skilful artisan, 246, 247 ; 

adventure of, with the Ribhus, 

247, 248 ; Indra's father, 251 ; 

an old morose sky-god, 252 ; 

— and the Ashvins, 252—256 
"Twice-born" {dvi-Jd), castes 

alone allowed the study of the 

Veda, 279 

U 

" Upanishads," philosophical 
treatises, 95, 123 ; in the Rig- 
Veda, 426-428 

Ural Mountains, a fictitious 
boundary between Eixrope and 
Asia, 74, 75 

Ushas, the Dawn ; badly treated 
by Indra, 220, 221 ; the most 
poetical figure in the Rig- 
Veda, 221-224 ; her i-elations 
to her sister, Night, 225 ; to 
Surya, 226; "the Mother of 
Cows," 227 ; the dispenser of 
wealth, 227-229 

Uttara-Kura, the " remotest of 



V 



Vach, divinized speech, 269 ; 
originally thunder, the voice 
of the gods ; then the Sacred 
Word, 270 ; hymn to, ib. ; 
eventually ritualistic Prayer, 
271 ; the "divine Cow," 272 

Vaishvdnara, a surname of Agni, 
158 

Vaishyas, the Working Class, 
third caste, 274 ; defined in the 
Laws of Manu, 275 



456 



INDEX. 



"Vajasaneya Samhita," "the 
White Yaju," a part of the 
Yajur-Veda, 117 

Vala, the cave-demon (clouds), 258 

Varna " color," the native name 
for caste, 283 

Varuna, a Sky-god ; meaning of 
the name ; whence derived, 
140-142; King and ^j-«;'«, 143; 
ruler of the Atmosphere, 144 ; 
hymns to, 145 ; keeper of the 
Rita, 146 ; the punisher of sin, 
147 ; Vasishtha's penitential 
hymns to, 147, 148 ; invoked 
jointly with Mitra, 149 ; trans- 
form^ed into a water-god, 150 ; 
an Aditya, 151 ; his rivalry 
with Indra, 202, 203 

Varunani, the wife of Varuna, a 
pale abstraction, 265 

Vasishtha, a Rishi, bard of the 
Tritsu ; his narrow orthodoxy 
and fierce race feeling ; opposes 
Vishvamitra's liberal policy ; 
schism between the two 
schools, 318-322 

Vdstideva, a surname of Vishnu, 

Vasuki (also Shesh or Sheshna), 
King of Serpents, 189 

Vata, see Vayu. 

Vayu, or Vata, the wind, 185, 186 

Veda, meaning of the word, 98, 
99 ; the three traividya, 117 ; 
the fourth, ib. ; study of — for- 
bidden the, Shiidra caste, 279 

" Vedangas," the six "limbs of 
the Veda," ; branches of Vedic 
scholarship, 125, 126 

" Vedanta-Upanishads," have 
their roots in the Rig-Veda, 
426 

Vedi^ the seat of the gods at sac- 
rifices, 397 

Vegetation, variety of, 34-36 

" Vikrama and Urvasi," or " the 
Hero and the Nymph," play 
by Kalidasa, 90, 91^ 

Vikramaditya, King of Ujjain, 
the patron of Kalidasa, 88 



Vindhya Mountains, divide Hin- 
dustan from Dekhan, 3 ; their 
character and elevation, 16 

Vipasa, Vedic name of the Bias. 

Vishanin, the ; probably wor- 
shippers of Vishnu ; allies of 
the Tritsu in the War of the 
Ten Kings, 328 

Vishnu, 240; the "Preserver" 
in the Brahmanic triad, 241 ; 
third (Tortoise), Avatar, of, 
188 ; sixth (Parashu-Rama) 
Avatar of, 278, note ; first 
(Fish) Avatar of, 335-347 

Vishvakarman, " the Artificer of 
the Universe," a title of Indra, 
Surya, and others, 263 ; be- 
comes an abstraction and the 
name of the Supreme Being, 
264 ; the " First-born of the 
Waters," 425 

Vishvamitra, a Rishi, purohita 
of the Bharatas ; his liberal 
policy towards the native tribes 
and broad religious propagan- 
da, opposed by Vasishtha ; the 
schism between the two 
schools, 318-322 

Vishvarilpa, " omniform," an 
epithet of Savitar, 245 ; and 
of Tvashtar, 246 ; a son of 
Tvashtar, ^49 ; killed by In- 
dra, 250 

Vitasta, Vedic and Epic name of 
the Jhelum. 

Vivanhvant, Eranian equivalent 
of Vivasvat. 

Vivasvat, Eranian Vivanhvant, 
the father of Yama, 18 1 ; 
and husband of Saranyu, 
father of the Ashvins and of 
Manu ; probably the Lumi- 
nous Sky ; 252-256 ; title 
given by courtesy to sacri- 
ficers, 255 

Viyas, see Bias. 

Vritra, cloud demon of drought, 

195 
Vritrahdn — "killer of Vritra," 
title of Indra, 199 



INDEX. 



457 



Vydkarana (Grammar), one of 
Vedangas, 125 

W 

" War of the Ten Kings, the, 
326-333 ^ 

Waters, the (Apas), the Mothers 
of Agni, 162 ; — and Rivers, di- 
vinized, 265-267 ; Cosmogonic, 
423 #. 

Wilkins, Charles, "Father of 
Sanskrit Studies," 57 ; his 
arduous labors, loo-ioi 

Woman, Aryan ; her exalted po- 
sition in Vedic times, 367, 36S, 
372 ; how deteriorated under 
later Hinduism, 372, 373 

Words, the only material for the 
reconstruction of early Aryan 
life, 59, 60 ; individual San- 
skrit, ^traced through the va- 
rious Aryan languages, ancient 
and modern, 60-74 

World, the hidden, "Navel of 
the Universe," 424, 425 

Worlds, the two — Heaven, 
Earth, 136 ; the three, Heaven, 
Earth and the Atmosphere, 
144 ; the six, the seven, etc., 
424, 425 

Y 

Yadu, the ; one of the " Five 
Tribes," 323, 324 



Yajamdndh, the patrons for 
whose benefit sacrifices are 
offered, 399 

Yajna, see Sacrifice. 

Yajur-Veda, the second Veda, 
116 

Yak, the Himalaya Cow, 36 

Yama, the king of the dead ; 
parallel with the Eranian 
Yima, 181 ; his messengers, 
the Sarameya dogs, 182, 256, 
259i 357 ; supposed to be the 
setting sun ; more probably 
the Moon, 183-185 ; son of 
Vivasvat, 181, and Saranyu, 
252, 255 ; invoked at funerals, 
356, 357 ; later identified with 
Mrityu (Death) and made the 
ruler of hells, 363 

Yami, twin sister of Yama, 252, 
tioie 

Yamuna (modern Djumna). men- 
tioned only once in the Rig- 
Veda, 267 

Yavishtha, a surname of Agni, 

Yima, Eranian equivalent of 
Yama. 



Zadadres, Greek name of tlie 
Sutledj. 

Zeus, Zeus-pater, Greek equiva- 
lent of Vedic Dyaushpitar, 

137 




SEP 271901 




The Story of the Nations. 



Messrs. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS take pleasure in 
announcing that they have in course of publication, in 
co-operation with Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, of London, a 
series of historical studies, intended to present in a graphic 
manner the stories of the different nations that have 
attained prominence in history. 

In the story form the current of each national life is 
distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy 
periods and episodes are presented for the reader in their 
philosophical relation to each other as well as to universal 
history. 

It is the plan of the writers of the different volumes to 
enter into the real life of the peoples, and to bring them 
before the reader as they actually lived, labored, and 
struggled — as they studied and wrote, and as they amused 
themselves. In carrying out this plan, the myths, with 
which the history of all lands begins, will not be over- 
looked, though these will be carefully distinguished from 
the actual history, so far as the labors of the accepted 
historical authorities have resulted in definite conclusions. 

The subjects of the different volumes have been planned 
to cover connecting and, as far as possible, consecutive 
epochs or periods, so that the set when completed will 
present in a comprehensi^^ narrative the chief events in 
the great Story of the Nations ; but it is, of course, 
not always practicable to issue the several volumes in 
their chronological order. 



THE STORY OF THE NATIONS. 



The "Stories" are printed in good readable type, and in 
handsome i2mo form. They are adequately illustrated and 
furnished with maps and indexes. Price per vol., cloth, $1.50 ; 
half morocco, gilt top, $1.75. 

The following are now ready : 

GREECE. Prof. Jas. A. Harrison. 
ROME. Arthur Gilman. 



THE JEWS. Prof. James K. Hosmer. 
CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. 
NORWAY. Hjalmar H, Boyesen. 
SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale. 
HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vambery. 
CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. Church. 
THE SARACENS. Arthur Gilman. 
THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley 

Lane-Poole. 
THE NORMANS. Sarah Orne Jewett. 
PERSIA. S. G. W^. Benjamin. 
ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof, Geo. Raw- 

linson. 
ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. J. 

P. Mahaffy. 
ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley. 
IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 
TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 
MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA. 

Z. A. Ragozin. 
MEDI^ffiVAL FRANCE. Prof. Gus- 

tave Masson. 
HOLLAND. Prof. J. Thorold Rogers. 
MEXICO. Susan Hale. 
PHCENICIA. Geo. Rawlinson. 
THE HANSATOW^NS. Helen Zim- 

mern. 
EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. Alfred J. 

Church. 
THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. Stan- 
ley Lane-Pool. 
RUSSIA. W^. R. Morfill. 
THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W^. D. 

Morrison. 
SCOTLAND. John Mackintosh. 
SWITZERLAND. R. Stead and Mrs. 

A. Hug. 
PORTUGAL. H. Morse-Stephens. 
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. C. W. 

C. Oman. 
SICILY. E. A. Freeman. 
THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. Bella 

Duffy. 
POLAND. W. R. Morfill. 
PARTHIA. Geo. Rawlinson. 



JAPAN. David Murray. 

THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERY OF 

SPAIN. H. E. Watts. 
AUSTRALASIA. Greville Tregar- 

then. 
SOUTHERN AFRICA. Geo. M. 

Theal. 
VENICE. AletheaWiel. 
THE CRUSADES. T. S. Archer and 

C. L. Kingsford. 
VEDIC INDIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
BOHEMIA. C. E. Maurice. 
CANADA. J. G. Bourinot. 
THE BALKAN STATES. William 

Miller. 
BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. R. W. 

Frazer. 
MODERN FRANCE. Andre Le Bon. 
THE BUILDINGOF THE BRITISH 

EMPIRE. Alfred T. Story. Two 

vols. 
THE FRANKS. Lewis Sergeant. 
THE WEST INDIES. Amos K. 

Fiske. 
THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND IN 

THE 19TH CENTURY. Justin 

McCarthy, M.P. Two vols. 
AUSTRIA, THE HOME OF THE 

HAPSBURG DYNASTY, FROM 

1282 TO THE PRESENT DAY. 

Sidney W^hitman. 
CHINA. Robt. K. Douglass. 

Other volumes in preparation are : 
MODERN SPAIN. Major Martin A. 

S. Hume. 
THE UNITED STATES, 1775-1897. 

A. C. McLaughlin, Professor of 

American History, University of 

Michigan. In two vols. 
BUDDHIST INDIA. Prof. T. W^. 

Rhys-Davids. 
MOHAMMEDAN INDIA. Stanley 

Lane-Poole. 
THE THIRTEEN COLONIES. 

Helen A. Smith. 
W^ALES AND CORNW^ALL. Owen 

M. Edwards. 
THE ITALIAN KINGDOM. 



Heroes of the Nations. 



EDITED BY 



EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A., 
Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 



A Series of biographical studies of the Hves and work 
of a number of representative historical characters about 
whom have gathered the great traditions of the Nations 
to which they belonged, and who have been accepted, in 
many instances, as types of the several National ideals. 
With the life of each typical character will be presented 
a picture of the National conditions surrounding him 
during his career. 

The narratives are the work of writers who are recog- 
nized authorities on their several subjects, and, while 
thoroughly trustworthy as history, will present picturesque 
and dramatic " stories " of the Men and of the events con- 
nected with them. 

To the Life of each " Hero " will be given one duo- 
decimo volume, handsomely printed in large type, pro- 
vided with maps and adequately illustrated according to 
the special requirements of the several subjects. The 
volumes will be sold separately as follows : 



Large 12°, cloth extra . 

Half morocco, uncut edges, gilt top 



;r 50 

I 75 



HEROES OF THE NATIONS. 

Nelson, and the Naval Supremacy of England. By W. Clark Russell, author of 

" The Wreck of the Grosvenor," etc. 
Gustavus Adolphus, and the Struggle of Protestantism for Existence. By C. R. 

L. Fletcher, M.A., late Fellow of All Souls' College. 
Pericles, and the Golden Age of Athens. By Evelyn Abbott, M.A. 
Theodoric the Goth, the Barbarian Champion of Civilisation. By Thomas 

HoDGKiN, author of " Italy and Her Invaders," etc. 
Sir Philip Sidney, and the Chivalry of England. By H. R. Fox-Bourne, author of 

" The Life of John Locke," etc. 
Julius Caesar, and the Organisation of the Roman Empire. By W. Ward 

Fowler, M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. 
John Wyclif, Last of the Schoolmen, and First of the English Reformers, By 

Lewis Sergeant, author of " New Greece," etc. 
Napoleon, Warrior and Ruler, and the Military Supremacy of Revolutionary 

France. By W. O'Connor Morris. 
Henry of Navarre, and the Huguenots of France. By P. F. Willert, M.A., Fel- 
low of Exeter College, Oxford, 
Cicero, and the Fall of the Roman Republic, By J. L. Strachan-Davidson, M.A., 

Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 
Abraham Lincoln, and the Downfall of American Slavery. By Noah Brooks. 
Prince Henry (of Portugal) the Navigator, and the Age of Discovery. By C. R. 

Beazley, Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. 
Julian the Philosopher, and the Last Struggle of Paganism against Christianity, 

By Alice Gardner. 
Louis XIV,, and the Zenith of the French Monarchy. By Arthur Hassall, 

M.A., Senior Student of Christ Church College, Oxford. 
Charles XII., and the Collapse of the Swedish Empire, 1682-1719. By R. Nisbet 

Bain. 
Lorenzo de' Medici, and Florence in the 15th Century. By Edward Armstrong, 

M.A., Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford. 
Jeanne d'Arc. Her Life and Death. By Mrs. Oliphant. 
Christopher Columbus. His Life and Voyages. By Washington Irving. 
Robert the Bruce, and the Struggle for Scottish Independence, By Sir Herbert 

Maxwell, M.P. 
Hannibal, Soldier, Statesman, Patriot ; and the Crisis of the Struggle between 

Carthage and Rome. By W. O'Connor Morris, Sometime Scholar of Oriel 

College, Oxford. 
Ulysses S. Grant, and the Period of National Preservation and Reconstruction, 

1822-1885. By Lieut.-Col. William Conant Church. 
Robert E. Lee, and the Southern Confederacy, 1807-1870. By Prof. Henry 

Alexander White, of the Washington and Lee University. 
The Cid Campeador, and the Waning of the Crescent in the West. By H, 

Butler Clarke, Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. 
Saladin, and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. By Stanley Lane-Poole 

author of " The Moors in Spain," etc. 
Bismarck, and the New German Empire, How it Arose and What it Displaced. 

By W. J. Headlam, M.A., Fellow of King's College. 

To be follozued by : 

Moltke, and the Military Supremacy of Germany. By Spencer Wilkinson, 

London University. 
Judas Maccabaeus, the Conflict between Hellenism and Hebraism, By Israel 

Abrahams, author of " The Jews of the Middle Ages." 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SON£fc,NE\v 



£i|NE\V_yOiJC AND LONlj^OIS 






















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